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A Farm in Brittany
One of 17 canvases that Paul Gauguin completed during a brief and tumultuous visit with Vincent van Gogh in Arles, this powerful and enigmatic painting depicts the public garden directly across from Van Gogh’s house. The painting's large, flat areas of color, arbitrary handling of space, and enigmatic silhouettes exemplify the deliberateness with which Gauguin sought visual harmony and symbolism in his work.
The Mower
The painting shows a landscape with a large, dark blue mountain in the background. Below the mountain are blocks of color, suggesting fields and structures. The area is filled with colors including yellows, oranges, reds, purples, and greens. The sky above the mountain is painted in a teal color with light pink clouds. The painting features thick brushstrokes, and the shapes lack specific details.
The Pigeon Tower at Bellevue
A white path and gray stone wall wind through ochre and harvest-yellow fields beneath a brilliant, turquoise sky in this stylized, horizontal landscape painting. The scene is created with long, visible brushstrokes of vivid color. Closest to us, the field is painted with vertical strokes of golden yellow and pea green. Touches of cardinal red and slashes of pine green create flowers around the end of the stone wall, which curves toward us from the background, at the center of this painting. The wall is painted with horizontal dashes of lilac and lavender purple, salmon pink, and periwinkle blue. A person wearing peach-colored trousers, a peacock-blue shirt, and a dark hat walks away from us, into the field, to our left of the wall. The white road enters the scene from the right, and meets the stone wall and a second wall on the far side of the road at a gate. Two columns rise from the walls to mark the spot of the gate, which opens into a property with three tall haystacks and a house. To our left, the house is painted with areas of warm yellow for the walls, honey brown for the roof, which is outlined in navy blue, and turquoise for the doors and windows. A few green trees, made of dots of bottle and forest green, are scattered near the house and haystacks. One sapphire-blue tree grows near the house. A band of azure blue along the horizon, which comes about two-thirds of the way up the painting, suggests a mountain range in the distance. Swirls of white suggest clouds in the turquoise sky. The paint is visibly textured throughout.
The Pink Cloud
Misty Sea
Wrestlers in a Circus
Low Tide at Pourville, near Dieppe, 1882
Two nude women with brown skin and long black hair stand with their backs to us at a riverbank in this stylized horizontal painting. The body of the woman to our left is angled to our left with her hands raised, presumably about to plunge into the teal-colored water. The woman to our right unwraps a cloth patterned with bright yellow flowers on a deep purple background from her waist. Between the women and farther away, a bare-chested man, also with brown skin, wears a tomato-red garment across his hips as he stands hip-deep in the water holding a long spear. The top of his head is cropped by the top edge of the painting. Along the left edge of the canvas, a gnarled tree is painted as a flat field of dark, charcoal gray, and it rises off the side and top of the composition. An area of the same color, perhaps a thick root or the trunk growing nearly horizontally, spans the width of the painting, separating the women from us. The area around the trunk to our left and right is painted with fields of evergreen and cool mint. Closer to us, along the front of the root, a field of rosy pink swirls with grape purple to suggest sand. This area is dotted with harvest-yellow and pumpkin-orange vines and stylized flowers. A bunch of vivid orange flowers with pine and spring-green leaves sits on the root near the trunk, to our left. Most of the painting, especially the landscape, is painted with areas of mostly flat color. In the bottom left corner, the artist has written the title of the painting in darkred paint: “Fatata te Miki.” In the lower right corner, he signed and dated the work with periwinkle blue: “P. Gauguin 92.”
This painting shows a village nestled in hills and trees with a cloudy blue sky at the top. Closest to us are simple white buildings, some with white spires and others with red and brown roofs, surrounded by tall trees. In the distance there are hills, smaller trees, and sailboats on a body of water on the right. The artwork has visible brushstrokes, and the buildings are simple and flat. The color palette is earthy, with soft greens, warm tans, and light whites and yellows.
In the Waves (Dans les Vagues)
The Siesta
Sahurs Meadows in Morning Sun
This is a landscape painting depicting a body of water surrounded by greenery, with tall green and purple mountains in the background under a sky full of dark pink clouds and a strip of bright blue-green. To the right of center, a person stands in the water, submerged up to their thighs. The person faces away from us. Their skin is painted in shades of light orange and tan, and they have an orange cloth wrapped around their waist. They hold a long, thin spear, and look down at the water. Behind them, on the opposite shore, another indistinct person looks on, standing on the grassy green ground. At the edge of the tall mountains is a line of green trees. The wide water reflects the green and purple of the mountains, as well as the pink of the sky.
In saturated, vivid tones of mint green, marigold orange, dandelion yellow, sky blue, and rose pink, a long building stretches away from us along a walkway. The narrow end of the building facing us to the right is orange, and the long side is frosty green. The roof is painted garnet red, and the windows are created with slashes of midnight blue and dark red outlined with topaz blue. A wall enclosing the structure is lemon-lime yellow, and a fence in front of that is painted ultramarine blue. The walkway beneath the fence is pink and, to the left of that, pale blue. Two trees painted with twisting lines of ruby red, shamrock green, black, and off white edge into the scene along the left side, and the sky is lapis blue around a mint-green halo that surrounds the building’s roofline and walls. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes throughout.
The Cliffs at Beg-ar-Fry, Saint-Jean-du-Doigt
Two Poplars in the Alpilles near Saint-Rémy
This painting shows a green landscape from an elevated viewpoint. In the distance, light blue water meets a pale-yellow sky, and the sun casts a golden glow over the landscape. Closest to us is a shore covered in overlapping greenery and several round trees. There is a small hill on the right, with a small gray structure sitting atop it. At the bottom, two indistinct brown animals graze on a dirt mound. Behind them, another gray building is tucked away behind bushes and trees. Golden clouds drift across the sky.
This painting depicts a green field of cotton plants with white blossoms. Three individuals are seen harvesting the cotton. They appear to be wearing skirts and bonnets and have dark skin, although their faces aren’t detailed. The background includes buildings on the left and green trees against a pale blue sky with hints of grey. The painting utilizes loose, visible brushstrokes. The color scheme is warm and natural, featuring shades of green, brown, and muted tones.
The Orange Christ
Mount Sainte-Victoire
The Gardener
Männerakt
Procession or Pardon at Perros-Guirec
This painting is an abstract composition of irregular shapes and vibrant colors. The different sections overlap and intersect in shades of green, blue, red, purple, and pink. A blue section in the top left has black dots, and two purple sections towards the bottom have white dots with yellow centers. In the upper center of the painting, there is a section of crossing black lines in a small grid. The paint has been applied unevenly in thick, scribbled lines, and some patches of the white canvas are visible.
Still-life with fruits on green cloth
Three Tahitian Women
The Call
A nude woman with brown skin and long black hair stands to our right against a landscape swirling with jewel-toned greens, pinks, and purples while a man, also with brown skin, sits under a tree behind her in this stylized vertical painting. The woman's body is angled to our right, and she cuts her black eyes back to look off to our left. She touches her chin with the fingertips of her right hand, closer to us, while her left hand holds a white cloth over her groin. The ground beneath her is swirled with bright pink, lilac purple, and some strokes of canary yellow. To our left and behind the woman, the man wears a topaz-blue robe, and he kneels with his hands on his knees. A band of vivid orange and kelly green in front of his knees could be abstracted flowers. His oval face is rimmed with a band of black. He has a wide nose, and his pink lips are parted to reveal his teeth. His eyes are wide open as he looks down under black brows. A craggy, dark teal-blue tree trunk curves up and across the background, and a red and green faced serpent floats near the upper right corner. The artist signed, dated, and inscribed the title in the lower left corner, "P Gauguin 92 Parau na te Varua ino."
Nine oranges and lemons sit in a shallow basket with dark green, spiky branches behind and a pair of cobalt-blue gloves in front in this horizontal still life painting. The scene is painted with long, loose brushstrokes, which are visible throughout. The muted orange and golden yellow fruit are outlined with blue, as is the woven basket in which they sit. The two cypress branches behind and to either side of the basket are painted with sky blue along the stems and long, bristly needles. The gloves sit one atop the other near the lower right corner, and the top glove has three brown stripes down the back. The surface beneath the still life is sand brown, and the pale turquoise background takes up the top third of the composition. The artist signed and dated this with the location in the lower right corner, “Vincent Arles 89.”
Wheat Field with Cypresses
Natural Bridge, Bermuda
Émilie
Two nude women, painted in vibrant coral peach and bubblegum pink, stand under a red umbrella in a landscape in this stylized, vertical painting. The scene is painted with areas of flat or streaked color with visible brushstrokes throughout. The women and umbrella take up most of the picture. The woman on our left stands facing our right almost in profile. Her skin is vivid peach. Slashes of red outline her breasts, groin, and legs. Her hair, eyes, and eyebrows are painted with black strokes. She stands on one leg and stretches the other in front of her to overlap the far foot of the other woman. The first woman hooks her arm through the elbow of the other, who stands facing us to our right. This second woman has vivid pink skin also outlined in red. Her face is a darker shade of pink, resembling a mask, and her eyes are parallel strokes of black and blue. Her left arm, on our right, hangs by her side, and she holds the umbrella with the other arm. She either wears a hat or her hair is painted with alternating bands of black, red, and brown, and there is a red flower or bow to one side. Black lines in the candy-red umbrella suggest a rib on the underside and the handle. Cobalt-blue branches of a tree above the women has blue and green leaves. The landscape beyond them is made up of bands of acid green, yellow, saturated blue, and cool green.
A dark-haired, disembodied head of a haloed man with pale, peach skin floats against a red and yellow background in this vertical portrait. The man’s hair seems to be flattened against his forehead, and extends beyond his head at the back in a way that suggests it may become a cap or hood. His face turns toward us, and he looks down to our left under arched eyebrows. He has a prominent hooked nose and a brushy mustache. Behind his head, the background is divided into a tomato-red zone for the top half and a golden yellow field below, separated by a thin, pine-green line. Two red and green apples hang from a branch near the upper right corner. The thin yellow halo floats over his head to the left of the branch. A pine-green, stylized, vine-like form curves up from the bottom edge of the panel and ends with flat, sunshine yellow, square shapes, perhaps abstracted flowers or fruit. A hand near the lower right holds one end of the vine like a cigarette between fingertips. The vine seems to turn into a serpent’s head beyond the man’s fingers. Numbers and letters are painted in green in the lower left: “1889” and “P Go.”
This painting depicts two nude women standing, facing the left. The women have pale skin, and the woman on the left has red-blond hair while the woman on the right has dark brown hair. They are both reaching upward, and behind them is a tall tree with green leaves. Behind the tree is a green landscape with distant blue mountains under a cloudy blue sky.
This painting shows a person fishing in a small blue-gray boat, situated to the left of center. The individual's back is to us, and they hold a fishing rod that extends from the center of the painting into the water on the far right. The person is wearing a tan shirt, tan pants with a brown belt, and a wide-brimmed tan hat. There are thick, dark green and blue trees in the background; the water reflects dark greens and blues, as well as shades of tan and white from the boat and person. The brushstrokes are loose, and different colors of paint blend softly with one another.
The painting features a collection of fruit on a plate behind two bottles. The plate with the fruit is in the center of the painting, and on it are pieces of round, green fruit with hints of pink. They may be apples. A tall bottle is in front of the plate, and it is yellow with a white cap. Another, shorter bottle is to the right of the first; it has a colorful label. An apple like those on the plate rests in front of the bottles. There are also two blue-gray shapes that could be mugs on round saucers. The surface these objects rest on is mostly green, but there are also streaks of blue and light pink. The wall behind the objects is made up of streaks of light and dark blue. The brushstrokes in the image are thick and visible, blurring the details on the objects.
We look slightly down into a lime-green and white rowboat carrying a woman holding a baby and a man in this nearly square painting. The man wears midnight-blue shoes, pants, jacket, and soft, floppy cap. He sits with his back to us, bending forward to row the boat, which is cropped by the bottom edge of the canvas. The left side of his ruddy face is visible over his left shoulder. The woman and baby both have pale skin. The woman and baby sit across from the man, facing us to our left in the bow. The woman’s long-sleeved, sky-blue dress is crosshatched with pink lines. The baby leans back in the woman’s arms, and wears a pink dress, blue socks, and brown shoes. The wide-brimmed hats on both the woman and baby are painted pale celery green. They gaze toward or just past the man. The corner of the boat’s sail, also painted pale green, is pulled taunt by the wind to our left. Azure-blue water surrounds the boat up to the high horizon line, which brushes the top edge of the painting. The shoreline in the distance is lined with trees and dotted with white houses with red roofs.
Three whole, green pears against a caramel-brown background fill this horizontal still life painting. The painting was created with long, parallel, visible brushstrokes throughout, and a strip of unpainted canvas lines the top edge. We look slightly down onto the fruit, which was painted with thick strokes of lemon-lime, asparagus, and spring green, and each piece of fruit is outlined with navy blue. The two pears to either side stand up and the third, between them, lies on the table with its brown stem angled to our left.
The Fishermen (Fantastic Scene)
The Blue Boat
Flower Garden and Bungalow, Bermuda
The Siesta
Two people, perhaps a woman and man, and a baby sit at a table in a courtyard surrounded by vine-covered walls in this square painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible dabs, dashes, or smudges. The table is to the left of center. The man sits on the far side, to our left, and the woman, who appears to have her brown hair pulled up, sits facing away from us wearing a smoke-gray garment. A child wearing pink and pale blue sits to our right of the woman and seems to raise both arms. The ground is dotted with cream white and fog gray against the brown board on which this was painted. Steps lead up to a building at the back of the courtyard to the left, and the vine-covered wall stretches across the right two-thirds of the background. The artist signed the lower left corner, “E Vuilllard.”
A woman pushes aside a deep golden yellow curtain that fills three-quarters of this nearly square painting. The curtain runs on a rod parallel and close to the top of the canvas, extends off the right edge, and falls behind a bed covered in the same color. The bed is cropped by the bottom and left edges of the painting, and a brown, arched wood footboard almost reaches the right side. The woman stands on the far side of the bed, facing away from us as she pulls at the curtain with her right hand. She wears a navy-blue dress and a brown braid falls down her back. She reveals an area covered in a pink, green, and white floral pattern that seems to match the size of the curtain, at least along the left edge where it is exposed. A round mirror hangs on the floral-patterned area above a red piece of furniture, perhaps a small table or stool. The wall around the patterned area and curtain is painted bone white. A line incised in the paint running from the top left corner of the floral area to the top edge of the canvas suggests a crack in the wall. The paint is loosely applied so brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially in the floral pattern. The artist’s signature is painted in red in the lower left corner: "E. Vuillard."
This painting depicts a white house in a lush green setting. The house has dark windows and a red chimney, partially obscured by trees that cast dappled shadows on the house's facade. The front door appears to be open. A light brown path runs parallel to the house at the bottom of the image, and small gray steps lead up the grass towards the house. The color palette includes vibrant greens for the foliage and a light blue for the sky behind the house. The brushstrokes are loose and impressionistic, creating a soft and textured appearance in the trees, grass, and building.
The Windmill
The Forest at Pontaubert
Irregular, geometric shapes in burnt orange, pale peach, light blue, forest and mint green, brown, taupe, gray, and black are layered and spread across this horizontal, abstract painting. They are mostly flat planes of color. One shape to our right of center has four rows of rounded rectangles to create a checkboard pattern of sage green against terracotta brown. A wide parchment-brown band divides the checkboard from top to bottom. The artist signed the lower right, “Juan Gris.”
Still Life with Apples and a Pot of Primroses
The Pyrenees, the Peak of the Midi de Bigorre
William Merritt Chase was one of the most influential painters at the turn of the 20th century. In this painting, which probably depicts Brooklyn’s Tompkins Park, half the canvas is filled by the wide, empty walkway. Its strong diagonal borders carry the eye into the scene. This informal piece, capturing the sparkle of a summer day, affirms the fresh perspective Chase brought to painting scenes like this one.
The Sofa
The image shows an elevated view of a landscape with hills and a river or lake in the distance. Several buildings, including a church, are scattered across the land. Soldiers in red and white uniforms are lined up near a stone wall and gravestones in the foreground. The sky is blue with a few scattered clouds. The painting style uses precise brushstrokes, featuring a color palette of soft blues, greens, reds, and muted tones.
Sonniges Felsental
Poplars, Eragny
Still Life
L'Arlésienne: Madame Joseph-Michel Ginoux (Marie Julien, 1848–1911)
Madame Manet (Suzanne Leenhoff, 1829–1906) at Bellevue
A three-storied, white manor house with a rust-red roof and wings extending off both sides sits across an emerald-green lawn lined with tall, sage and dark green trees in this horizontal painting. Straw-brown paths lead to the house from either side of the lawn, where they meet an oval-shaped path directly in front of the house. The grassy area inside the oval is cordoned off with posts and weighted chains. Closer to us, three men, two women, and a gray dog stand on the lawn. Two of the men wear uniforms with navy-blue, button-lined jackets with golden yellow epaulets and collars, dark, tricorn hats, and butter-yellow britches over black, knee-high boots. The third man wears a brown suit with a white collar. Both the women wear white dresses. One has a sky-blue sash around her waist and the other has a black shawl wrapped across her torso, and wears a white bonnet. Two light-skinned people, perhaps a man and a child, walk along the path to our left, wearing gray suits. Four people closer to the house have brown skin. One of them, a woman, stands at the front center of the oval path and other three men approach a door in the wing to our left. One of that trio carries a shovel over his shoulder, one a rake, and the other a staff. A carriage guided by a seated horseman and pulled by four horses enters the scene from our right. To our left and right, covered walkways connect the main house to the side wings. The wing to our right is mostly hidden by trees and cut off by the right edge of the painting. The wing to our left has a teal-blue roof, red brick chimneys, and the same white walls as the manor. The main house has a triangular pediment over the front door and chimneys to each side of the red roof. A spire-like lantern is at the center of the roofline, over the pediment. Faint, wispy white clouds billow against the azure-blue sky above. Centered at the bottom of the scene across a white margin are the words, “A VIEW OF MOUNT.VERNON THE SEAT OF GENERAL WASHINGTON.”
Tahitian Women Bathing
Canal in Autumn (Gisors)
Viewing Sunset over the Ryogoku Bridge from the Onmaya Embankment (Onmayagashi yori Ryogokubashi sekiyo o miru), from the series "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjurokkei)"
Two Tahitian Women
Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons)
A Wall, Nassau
Ia Orana Maria (Hail Mary)
Two pale-skinned women are shown from the waist up behind a counter in an interior space in this nearly square painting. Loosely painted patterns on their clothing, bunches of flowers to our right, and the background to our left create a patchwork of claret red, ivory white, forest green, deep burgundy, and golden yellow. The woman standing closer to us takes up the left half of the composition. She faces our right in profile. Her features are painted with blended strokes so are indistinct. Her auburn hair is pulled up, and her high-collared, garnet-red and white striped shirt has long sleeves with puffy shoulders. She looks down at a red vase of flowers she holds at its base with the hand we see. The second woman stands at the first woman’s far shoulder. She turns her face slightly toward us, and also gazes down at the flowers on the counter. Her high-necked shirt is ruby red. Four wine-red vases in front of the women are filled with dark maroon-red or cream-white flowers, perhaps chrysanthemums, forest-green and tan greenery, and one vivid, tomato-red blossom. A gap between two vases could be another vase either patterned with white and celestial blue or reflecting those colors. A dark red and two white blossoms are in the lower left corner of the composition, next to a long, lidded box with light brown sides and a navy-blue top. A loosely painted form in the upper left corner, over the first woman’s shoulder, could be a figurine or another person. Though the details are vague, there is a suggestion of a face turned leftward. She has blond hair and wears a long, loose marigold-yellow garment. The right arm, to our left, could be raised to shoulder height, and she stands before a crimson background, maybe a curtain. The rest of the background is painted with dots and touches of apple red, maroon, orange, sage green, dark brown, and butter yellow. The artist signed the canvas near the lower right corner, “E. Vuillard.”
Combat for the Colors
Water Lilies
Cabin in the Cotton
Cypresses
Sceneries in the Tropical Land, by Imamura Shiko, Tokyo National Museum, Japan
Oleanders
Evening, Melancholy I
Cotton Roses and Sparrow, from an untitled series of Large Flowers
The House with the Cracked Walls
A Fisherman's Daughter
Apples
Spearing Eels
Rectangular plots of flowers, each in a single color, stretch toward us below a sky nearly filled with cream-white clouds in this horizontal landscape painting. Together, the monochromatic plots create the impression of a patchwork quilt, with large areas of pale pink, butter yellow, bright white, and baby blue. A person walks across the plots to our right. The horizon line comes almost halfway up the painting and is lined with dark brown houses with tall, pitched roofs. Two barren trees twist into the cloudy sky. The loose, short, parallel brushstrokes and touches of paint create a soft, hazy effect.
Mount Asama, byobu by Aodo Denzen, Tokyo National Museum, Japan
In 1888, Van Gogh moved into his own home in Arles, France. He dubbed it the “Studio of the South,” hoping that fellow artists would join him there to work. This is one of three versions he painted of his beloved Arles bedroom. While its vivid palette and dramatic perspective seem to burst with nervous vitality, Van Gogh intended the painting "to express utter repose."
Shore and Surf, Nassau
Still Life with Flowers and Fruit
Shown from the chest up, a light-skinned man wearing a burgundy-red turban faces our left in profile against a dark background in this vertical portrait painting. He looks off to the left, and the eye we can see is light brown under a faint, possibly plucked eyebrow. He has a straight nose, and his full peach-colored lips are closed. There is the suggestion of a puffy area under the eye we can see, but the rest of his skin is smooth. His brown hair is mostly tucked under his turban, and a piece of fabric hangs down the back of his neck. A band of his white undergarment is visible at the high neck of his olive-brown shirt, which appears to be pleated or striped down the front. He also wears a black jacket, which covers his shoulder and most of his chest. A brown band across the bottom edge of the painting could be a wooden railing or ledge, behind which the man is shown. Cracks are visible across the painting, especially in the deep green background.
The Bay of Marseille, Seen from L'Estaque
Still Life with Teapot and Fruit
The Pioneer
Hills around the Bay of Moulin Huet, Guernsey
Still Life with Apples and Pears
Große Praterlandschaft
Prince and Princess Hunting Blackbuck
Denshin kaishu Hokusai manga nihen
Mädchen in rotem Kleid
The Bathers, Souvenir of the Banks of the Anio River at Tivoli
Four young women with medium brown skin sit or stand on a pumpkin-orange ground in this horizontal painting. The women are divided into pairs by a broad, gold, undulating brushstroke running down the middle of the ground they occupy. They are mostly nude, and three have long black hair while one has flame-red hair. To our left, the woman with red hair stands facing us, wearing a glittering, silver necklace as she gazes off to our right. She presses a white patch, perhaps the end of a loincloth, to her upper leg with both hands. Seated next to her is a woman with most of her body turned away from us. She leans over onto her left arm and turns her head over that shoulder to look down and off to our right. Both women to our right are seated close to each other, their shoulders overlapping. One woman wears a white cloth around the hip we can see, and the other wears knee-length breeches. They both look toward us. Beyond the women is what appears to be a stream running diagonally from the lower left to end in a small pool in the middle right. It transitions from muted oranges and green to smoky blue and gray. Opposite us, more orange ground is lined with dense groves of dark green trees that wind into the distance. A woman wearing a coral-colored hood and blue robe holds the arm of a child, and a black dog crouches at their feet. They stand near a slightly larger-than-life-sized topaz-blue statue of a standing woman with her elbows bent and arms raised. The sky beyond the trees is streaked and swirled with bright orange, yellow, and blue. The artist signed and dated the painting, along with the title, in the lower left corner, “Paul Gauguin 98 TE PAPE NAVE NAVE.”