文档介绍：101
Starry Night over the Rhone,
Arles, 1888.
Oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm.
Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
102
103
Regarding the pictures van Gogh painted before and after Gauguin undertook him however, there
is little evidence of this progress. In March 1888 van Gogh painted the The Bridge at Langlois, in
July The Mousmé and the Portrait of Joseph Roulin, in August the Sunflowers, in September The Poet’s
Garden, The Starry Night, The Yellow House, the Self-portrait for my Friend Paul Gauguin and The
Café by Night, and in October Vincent’s Room at Arles. The very paintings that Gauguin dismissed
as ‘subdued, plete and monotonous’ are today regarded as his greatest masterpieces.
With Gauguin at his side, van Gogh painted less and without the force he had discovered earlier
that year. Discussions with his more confident colleague might have shaken his nerve. But as the
year drew to a close, poor weather conditions had also made it impossible to work outside. Unlike
Gauguin, van Gogh needed reality as a model. He was not able to separate his thoughts from
his subjects. He strove for a synthesis of reflection and the immediate feeling he had about the
things and people he painted. In his letters, he explains the meaning of certain motifs: The
sunflower, which he called ‘his flower’, signifies gratitude. The ‘sowing man’, a subject he had
borrowed from Millet, stands for the longing for the infinite. Van Gogh’s aim was:
to express the love of two lovers by a wedding of plementary
colours, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations
of kindred tones. To express the thought of a brow by the radiance of
a light tone against a somber background. To express hope by some
star, the eagerness of a soul by a sunset radiance. Certainly there is
no delusive realism in that, but isn’t it something that actually exists?82
The love and hope he had introduced into his canvases while waiting for Gauguin were ultimately
frustrated. Gauguin