Focus: a look, a work
RED VINE AT ARLES (LA VIGNE ROUGE)
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), 1888 - Pushkin Museum, Moscow, Russia
Could this harvest scene have really taken place?
Van Gogh painted two landscapes featuring vines in oils –The Green Vine and The Red Vine – during his period in Arles, where he lived from 20th February 1888. The Red Vine is one of the artist’s best-known paintings, and often said to be the only one sold in his lifetime – in February 1890, five months before his suicide.
He produced a harvest scene in late October, near Arles, depicting red vines.
This is decidedly odd: although Arles is in a Mediterranean region, a late-October harvest is still terribly late. Usually, the grape harvest takes place before the vines turn red. There is a plethora of grape-pickers – twenty-one! Night has almost fallen. What to make of this harvest scene? Could it have really taken place as Van Gogh depicts it, so late in the year? Let’s examine the evidence in Van Gogh’s Letters to his brother Théo...
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SOIR BLEU Edward Hopper, 1914 - Whitney Museum, New York (available soon)
BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST Harmenszoon van Rijn Rembrandt ca. 1636-1638 - National Gallery, London (available soon)
A YOUNG MAN OFFERING A CUP OF WINE TO A GIRL Persian miniature persane, 16th c. - MFA, Boston, CT, United States (available soon)
SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST Leonardo da Vinci, ca. 1513/16 - Musée du Louvre, Paris (available soon)
APOCALYPSE TAPESTRY Harvest of the Earth End of the 14th century - Château d'Angers, France (available soon)
PRUNING ca. 1478/80 - British Library, London (available soon)
THE LAST SUPPER Tintoretto, 1559 - St François-Xavier Church, Paris (available soon)
NOAH WINEGROWING, THE DRUNKENNESS OF NOAH Miroir historial, Vincent de Beauvais, 1463 - BnF, Paris (available soon)
ADORATION OF THE LAMB Hubert and Jan van Eyck, 1432 Ghent Altarpiece, lower central panel - St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium (available soon)
THE FAMILY AFTER THE MEAL or THE GREEN DINNER Edouard Vuillard, 1891 - Private collection (available soon)
