Landscape from Arles

Painted in 1888, this landscape captures Gauguin's brief but pivotal time in Arles, where he joined Vincent van Gogh in an attempt to establish an artists' colony in the south of France. This work was created during a transitional period when Gauguin was moving away from Impressionism toward his distinctive Post-Impressionist style characterized by bold, flat colors and simplified forms—what would later be called Synthetism. The Arles period, though lasting only two months before the artists' famous falling-out, was crucial for both painters as they pushed each other toward more expressive uses of color and form.

The landscape reflects Gauguin's evolving approach to depicting nature, which he increasingly saw not as something to faithfully reproduce but as raw material for artistic interpretation. During this same year, he also painted 'Arlésiennes (Mistral),' showing his interest in the people and places of this Provençal region. Unlike the sun-drenched, vibrant canvases that would define his later Tahitian period, this Arles landscape represents Gauguin still working within a European context, yet already experimenting with the decorative flatness and symbolic color that would become his trademark. The work captures a moment when Gauguin was seeking to escape what he saw as the corrupting influence of Western civilization—a search that would eventually lead him to Brittany, Martinique, and ultimately Tahiti.