Snowy Landscape with Arles in the Background

Vincent van Gogh

Contemporary-Art.org
Keywords: SnowyLandscapeArlesBackground

Work Overview

Snowy Landscape with Arles in the Background
Vincent van Gogh
Date: 1888; Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône, France *
Style: Post-Impressionism
Genre: landscape
Media: oil, canvas
Dimensions: 60 x 50 cm
Location: Private Collection


At the time that 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 than 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."