Arles Favorites

Favorite thing: If you got there by train, a trip to Arles/Provence is greatly enhanced by renting a car or motorcycle for a day or two.

Using Arles, Nimes, or Aix en Provence as a home base, I recommend side trips to Roman ruins in Glanum, Orange, Camargue, Nimes, Pont du Gard, Rasteau, Saint-Remy, Aix en Provence, .... anywhere you feel like going.

The ancient town of Les Baux, and the Wine Heaven of Chateauneuf du Pape should not be missed.
Aix-en-Provence is worth a whole other set of pages in itself.
Most of all, driving on the small side roads and two lanes through the beautifully lit countryside that has inspired so many artists is such a pleasure.

Fondest memory: Driving to Chateauneuf du Pape estate Caves de Fines Roches and sampling their wines from the cellars on their beautiful estate. Chateauneuf and the Cotes du Rhones are some of the good wines of the world imho.

All of Provence is heaven when it is sunny and the mistral is not blowing.
Such remarkable countryside painted with sunlight.

Favorite thing: Around September 12, 1888, Vincent wrote to his brother Theo :
"I have a study of an old mill painted in subdued tones."
He was speaking about a painting representing one of the mills that had still survived through the 19th century in the Mouleyres quarter of the city.

In 1888 this mill had already lost its arms and probably been transformed.
The building existing today in the Rue Mireille, even though it has undergone many changes, still resembles the one in the painting.
Beside the mill can be seen part of a yard that the artist had already painted in June during the wheat harvest.

The same "mas", or Provençal farmhouses, can be seen in the background.

"The Old Mill"
September 1888
Oil on canvas
64.5 x 54 cm
Buffalo (N.Y.), Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Favorite thing: From the Roquette quay in October 1888, Vincent Van Gogh studied the metal bridge spanning the river and joining the two banks of the city of Arles.

His view took in all of the movement and the staircase, the link by which men and women climbed from the quay onto the bridge.

"The Trinquetaille Bridge"
October 1888
Oil on canvas, 73.5 x 92.5 cm
Zurich, Kunsthaus Zurich (on loan)

Favorite thing: In May 1888, Van Gogh rented four rooms on the right-hand side of a house on the Place Lamartine in Arles.
His living quarters were the ones with the green shutters. His bedroom lay beyond. Vincent had finally found a place where he could not only paint but also welcome his friends. His goal was to establish a “Studio of the South,” where he and like-minded artists could work together.

Just as he did in Nuenen and Paris, Van Gogh here depicts his own surroundings. To the left we see the restaurant where he usually took his meals. His friend, the postman Joseph Roulin, lived to the right, behind the first railroad bridge.

The view is also an exploration of color contrast: “What a powerful sight, those yellow houses in the sun and then the unforgettable clarity of the blue [sky],” he wrote to Theo in the letter that accompanied a drawing he had made after the painting.

The "Yellow House" where Van Gogh lived, however, and the prostitute area around the rue de la Cavalerie , disappeared after bombardments of WWII.

On the location of the "Cafe de Nuit" there is built a horrible Monoprix and the "Pont de Langlois" is replaced by a new bridge on the wrong location! The Tourist office in Arles tried to correct this situation and organizes commented tours with an intelligent commentary to show where Van Gogh rested his easel .

"Vincent's House in Arles" (The Yellow House)
September 1888
Oil on canvas, 72 x 91.5 cm
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh

Favorite thing: Van Gogh was fascinated by the beauty of the Arlesian sky at night, just as he had been fascinated by the powerful colors of the spring countryside ("that yellow sea"), and the deep daylight sky.

He lived on the Place Lamartine, but spent time all over the city during his short stay. Nightlife was concentrated in the cafés and cabarets where he met the few acquaintances he immortalized in Arles.

One evening in September 1888 the solitary painter set up his easel here on the Place du Forum...the beginning or end of his evening stroll among the "night owls".

"The Cafè Terrace on the Place du Forum" Arles, at Night
September 1888
Oil on canvas
81 x 65.5 cm
Otterlo, Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller

Favorite thing: Here is what Van Gogh's "Yellow House" looked like
just before it was bombarded during WWII.

Van Gogh's residence was on the upper floor, to the right,
that shows shutters (originally green) at the windows.

Favorite thing: In this picture can be seen figures from the series of portraits painted by Van Gogh.

In the center front are represented three members of the Roulin family :
the postman is seen in profile, his wife Augustine is seated beside him, with baby Marcelle on her lap.
The show is not a corrida, but a bull game where the bull is not killed.

In one of his letters, Vincent spoke of a "magnificent crowd, a huge multi-colored crowd spreading over two or three levels with effects of light and shadow."

Favorite thing: In October 1888 he came here with Paul Gauguin to paint the path.
His paintings had no historical meaning :
"I did two studies of falling leaves on a path lined with poplars", wrote the artist.
The paintings simply represent a fall scene.

Van Gogh set up his easel on the bank separating the Alyscamps from the Craponne Canal.
This explains the high viewpoint and the presence of both the path and the canal bank in the painting.