Here is the incandescent brilliance of van Gogh’s Saint-Rémy period, where he transforms the Provençal landscape into a chromatic symphony of great intensity.
These two poplars, torches raised toward a tormented azure sky, embody all the creative ardor of the Dutch master. Every impasto vibrates with pure energy: the yellow-greens explode against the deep ultramarines, creating this harmony so characteristic of his colorist genius. The pictorial matter literally sculpts the canvas, transforming each brushstroke into an expressive gesture.
Van Gogh reveals here his pantheistic vision: nature pulsates, undulates, breathes under his inspired brush. The limestone rocks of the Alpilles metamorphose into mineral waves, while the Mediterranean vegetation blazes in this meridional light so dear to the painter. This work testifies to this paradoxical period when internment liberated a dazzling creativity, making suffering the fertile ground for revolutionary pictorial innovations that prefigured modern art.
Further informations
- Two Poplars in the Alpilles near Saint-Rémy, by Vincent van Gogh, in 1889
- 61.6 x 45.7 cm (24 1/4 x 18 in.)
- The Cleveland Museum of Art, exhibited 222 Impressionism & Post-Impressionism
- https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1958.32
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) remains the incarnation of tormented genius and one of the most fascinating figures of Western art. A visionary Post-Impressionist, he developed a pictorial language mixing passionate observation of nature and intense subjective expressivity. His Saint-Rémy period (1889-1890) marked the paradoxical apex of his art: interned in the asylum after his Arles crisis, he produced there in a prodigious creative surge more than 150 paintings and drawings in one year, transforming his mental suffering into aesthetic innovations that durably influenced Expressionism and modern art.
