Landscape with Snow

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Landscape with Snow (F290)
Van Gogh - Landschaft im Schnee.jpg
Artist Vincent van Gogh
Year1888
Catalogue
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions38.0 cm× 46.0 cm(15.0 in× 18.1 in)
Location Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Landscape with Snow is a painting by Vincent van Gogh in 1888, believed to be one of the first paintings that he made in Arles. It is one of at least ten 1882 to 1889 oil and watercolor van Gogh paintings of a snowy landscape. The painting reflects the La Crau plains set against Montmajour and hills along the horizon.

Contents

Arles

When Van Gogh painted Landscape with Snow he was 35 years old. Living in Arles, in southern France, he rose to the height of his career, producing some of his best work, [1] such as fields, farmhouses and people of the Arles, Nîmes and Avignon area. [2]

The area was quite different from what he'd known in the Netherlands and Paris. People had dark hair and skin and spoke a language that sounded more Spanish than French. The colors were vivid. The terrain varied from plains to mountains. Here Van Gogh found a "brilliance and light that would wash out details and simplify forms, reducing the world around him to the sort of pattern he admired in Japanese woodblocks" and where the "effect of the sun would strengthen the outlines of composition and reduce nuances of color to a few vivid contrasts." [3]

The painting

When Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888 the ground was covered with snow [4] due to record cold temperatures. At the time of this painting the snow had begun to melt. [5] It's thought that this painting is one of his first paintings made in Arles. In a letter to his brother Theo about February 24, 1888, Van Gogh describes having completed three paintings in as many days, one of them "a landscape in the snow." [4]

The painting is made of the La Crau plain and Montmajour in the background. The audience is drawn in by the road that starts at the lower left hand corner of the frame right towards the trees, hills and snow-covered mountains at the horizon. Horizontal brushstrokes emphasize the plain that fills most of the painting; tension is created by the diagonal strokes of the road cutting across the plain. Van Gogh uses color to depict the components of the landscape. White and violet are used for snow. Brown, green and blue is used to suggest puddles and slush left by melting snow. Tufts of grass are painted in yellow along the side of the road. The view is accented by the red roofs along the horizon, brown dog, and the brown jacket and black hat of the man walking in the field. [4]

Van Gogh, an avid collector of Japanese art woodcut prints, may have been inspired by the prints with snowy scenes. If so, he had not left behind the standards used in Dutch landscape paintings which use dark greens and browns within the foreground and blues in the sky. What is unusual, though, is that the horizon sits high on the horizon, the attention focused on the foreground and land leading up to the house, nearly as if Van Gogh was walking behind the man and dog on the field. A few days later, following a new snow storm, Van Gogh painted another similar but less detailed landscape, Snowy Landscape with Arles in the Background (F391). [5]

In September 2017, President of the United States Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump asked the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum if they could borrow Landscape with Snow to decorate their living quarters in the White House's Executive Residence. The Guggenheim's Artistic Director and Chief Curator, Nancy Spector, declined. Instead she offered the White House America, a 2016 18K gold toilet sculpture by contemporary Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, but that installation did not occur. [6]

On November 10, 2023, rapper Aesop Rock released the spoken word track "On Failure" in his ninth studio album Integrated Tech Solutions , with lyrics primarily discussing Landscape with Snow.

See also

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<i>Flowering Orchards</i> Series of paintings by Vincent van Gogh

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<i>The Painter of Sunflowers</i> 1888 painting by Paul Gauguin

The Painter of Sunflowers is a portrait of Vincent van Gogh by Paul Gauguin. Van Gogh is depicted sitting before an easel, presumably painting his “Sunflower” series. The work, which is a piece from Gauguin’s “Arles Period”, was created in Arles, France, in December, 1888. The painting is in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. 

<i>Langlois Bridge at Arles</i> Series of paintings by Vincent van Gogh

The Langlois Bridge at Arles is the subject of four oil paintings, one watercolor and four drawings by Vincent van Gogh. The works, made in 1888 when van Gogh lived in Arles, in southern France, represent a melding of formal and creative aspects. Van Gogh used a perspective frame that he built and used in The Hague to create precise lines and angles when portraying perspective.

<i>Wheat Field with Cypresses</i> Paintings by Vincent van Gogh

A Wheatfield with Cypresses is any of three similar 1889 oil paintings by Vincent van Gogh, as part of his wheat field series. All were exhibited at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole mental asylum at Saint-Rémy near Arles, France, where Van Gogh was voluntarily a patient from May 1889 to May 1890. The works were inspired by the view from the window at the asylum towards the Alpilles mountains.

<i>Arles: View from the Wheat Fields</i> 1888 painting by Vincent van Gogh

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<i>Farmhouse in Provence</i> Painting by Vincent van Gogh

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Wheat Fields is a series of dozens of paintings by Dutch Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh, products of his religious studies and sermons, connection to nature, appreciation of manual laborers and desire to provide a means of offering comfort to others. The wheat field works demonstrate his progression as an artist from the drab Wheat Sheaves made in 1885 in the Netherlands to the colorful and dramatic 1888–1890 paintings from Arles, Saint-Rémy and Auvers-sur-Oise in rural France.

<i>Butterflies</i> (Van Gogh series) 1889–90 series of paintings by Vincent van Gogh

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<i>Almond Blossoms</i> 1888–1890 paintings by Vincent van Gogh

Almond Blossoms is a group of several paintings made in 1888 and 1890 by Vincent van Gogh in Arles and Saint-Rémy, southern France of blossoming almond trees. Flowering trees were special to van Gogh. They represented awakening and hope. He enjoyed them aesthetically and found joy in painting flowering trees. The works reflect the influence of Impressionism, Divisionism, and Japanese woodcuts. Almond Blossom was made to celebrate the birth of his nephew and namesake, son of his brother Theo and sister-in-law Jo.

<i>Hospital in Arles</i> Painting series by Vincent van Gogh

Hospital at Arles is the subject of two paintings that Vincent van Gogh made of the hospital in which he stayed in December 1888 and again in January 1889. The hospital is located in Arles in southern France. One of the paintings is of the central garden between four buildings titled Garden of the Hospital in Arles ; the other painting is of a ward within the hospital titled Ward of the Hospital in Arles. Van Gogh also painted Portrait of Dr. Félix Rey, a portrait of his physician while in the hospital.

<i>Saintes-Maries</i> (Van Gogh series) Painting series by Vincent van Gogh

The French town of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer is the subject of a series of paintings that Vincent van Gogh made in June 1888. When Van Gogh lived in Arles, he took a week-long trip to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer on the Mediterranean Sea, where he made several paintings of the seascape and town.

<i>Landscape near Arles</i> Painting by Paul Gauguin

Landscape near Arles is an 1888 oil painting by French artist Paul Gauguin depicting a rural scene in Provence. It is currently located in the Indianapolis Museum of Art in Indianapolis, Indiana.

<i>Sunset at Montmajour</i> Painting by Vincent van Gogh

Sunset at Montmajour is a landscape in oils painted by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh on 4 July 1888. It was painted while the artist was at Arles, France and depicts a landscape of garrigue with the ruins of Montmajour Abbey in the background. The painting is 73.3 cm × 93.3 cm. For over 100 years, it was in a Norwegian industrialist's private collection and wrongly assumed to be fake, before being re-examined, authenticated and sold to its current private owner. The painting was temporarily on display from 24 September 2013 until 12 January 2014 as part of an exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

References

  1. Morton, M; Schmunk, P (2000). The Arts Entwined: Music and Painting in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Garland Publishing. pp. 177–178. ISBN   0-8153-3156-8.
  2. Arfin, F (2009). Adventure Guide to Provence & the Cote D'azur. Edison, NJ: Hunter Publishing. p. 37. ISBN   9781588435057.
  3. "Effects of the Sun in Provence" (PDF). National Gallery of Art Picturing France (1830-1900). Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art: 121–123, 131. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 May 2011.
  4. 1 2 3 Hansen, Nichols, Sund, Knudsen, Bremen (2003). Van Gogh: Fields. Hatje Cantz Publishers for Toledo Museum of Art Exhibition. pp. 52–53. ISBN   3-7757-1131-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. 1 2 Blessing, J (2011). "Landscape with Snow (Paysage enneigé)". Collection Online, by Artist. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved 8 May 2011.
  6. Schwartzman, Paul (25 January 2018). "The Trumps asked to borrow a Van Gogh for the White House. The Guggenheim offered an 18K gold toilet instead". The Washington Post. Retrieved 25 January 2018.