Asnières (Van Gogh series)
Encyclopedia
Asnières, now named Asnières-sur-Seine
, is the subject and location of paintings that Vincent van Gogh
made in 1887. The works, which include parks, restaurants, riverside settings and factories, mark a break-through in Van Gogh's artistic development. In Holland
Van Gogh was influenced by great Dutch masters
as well as Anton Mauve
a Dutch realist
painter who was a leading member of the Hague School
. Mauve was a significant early influence on his cousin-in-law Vincent van Gogh. In Paris Van Gogh was exposed to and influenced by Impressionism
, Symbolism, Pointillism
, and Japanese
woodblock print genres.
For Van Gogh's first twelve months in Paris he absorbed a lot of information about modern art
from the best of the avant-garde
artists of the time, but in practice his work in 1886 and early 1887 varied little from his paintings in Holland. The spring of 1887 Van Gogh stayed with Émile Bernard
and his parents in Asnières and the budding spring seemed to trigger an awakening within Van Gogh where he experimented with the genres to develop his personal style. In a country setting, undergoing industrialization, Van Gogh was able to depict his reverence for rural life and express concern about encroachment of industrialization. With new techniques, Van Gogh produced paintings evoked tenderness of couples taking a walk in the park or social commentary about the ways in which factories affected country life.
for Paris never to return. His brother Theo
, a successful Parisian art dealer, provided Van Gogh the support and connections for an immersion in modern art. In Holland Van Gogh was influenced by great Dutch masters as well as Anton Mauve a Dutch realist painter who was a leading member of the Hague School. Mauve was a significant early influence on his cousin-in-law Vincent van Gogh. Starting March, 1886 Van Gogh studied with Fernand Cormon
. During that time he lived with his brother Theo
who leased a large apartment on Rue Lepic
in Montmartre
with space for a studio for Van Gogh. Three months later Van Gogh abandoned his studies with Cormon, but his education continued as he met local artists. During 1886 he was introduced to Impressionist
artists and their works, such as Edgar Degas
, Claude Monet
, Auguste Renoir, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac
. In 1887 Van Gogh continued to make important connections with other artists who he befriended and exchanged paintings with, such as Louis Anquetin
, Émile Bernard
, Armand Guillaumin
, Lucien Pissarro
and Paul Signac
. Having been introduced to Impressionism and Pointillism
in Paris, Van Gogh began experimenting with related techniques, first on a series of self-portraits
before he moved on to larger, more complex compositions.
Many of the Impressionist artists also shared his interest in Japanese
wood block prints. The works of Japanese print makers
, Hiroshige
and Hokusai
greatly influenced Van Gogh, both for the beautiful subject matter and the style of flat patterns of colors, without shadow. Van Gogh arranged an exhibit in Paris of Japanese prints at Café du Tambourin
.
In the two years, from 1886 through 1888, Van Gogh emerged as a sophisticated, thoughtful and provoking artist. It is through association with artists in Paris that Van Gogh began to dream of a utopian artists community where "like-minded" individuals would realize "the perfect art."
/az-nee-air/), now named Asnières-sur-Seine
, a town in the northern suburbs of Paris
located on the banks of the Seine
and near the fortifications of Paris
. In the 19th century Parisians took a short train ride to Asnières for boating, including rowing meets; festivals; and the "unrestrained atmosphere" of its dances. The Goncourt brothers
[Edmond and Jules de Goncourt] wrote of Asnieres in their 1867 novel Manette Salomon. Anatole, a painter, meets up with his friends near a riverside cabaret, and they all got into his boat "comrades of both sexes, approximations of painters, species of artists, vague women known only by nicknames, actresses from Grenelle
, unemployed lorettes [women supported by their lovers], all tempted by the idea of the day in the country and a drink of claret in a cabaret."
Impressionists were interested in painting this area, en plein aire (English
: in the open), for the interesting scenery: bridges over the Seine, boats along the banks of the river, outdoor cafés and treed settings.
Longing for tranquil settings, Van Gogh began to paint in Asnières in April 1887 where fellow artists Paul Signac
and Émile Bernard
lived. Beyond the city fortifications and along the banks of the Seine, lay Asnières and the island of Grand Jatte. He experimented with a lighter, more colorful palette than used in his early Montmartre
and Dutch
paintings.When painting with Bernard, they often painted "in the open air." To his sister Wil
, Van Gogh wrote, "While painting at Asnières, I saw more colors than I have ever seen before." Instead of working in the somber colors of his early work, Van Gogh embraced the use of color and light of the Impressionists. Influenced by Impressionism
and Pointillism
, Van Gogh modified his traditional style and used vivid color, shorter brushstrokes and perspective to engage the viewer. His views of the banks of the Seine are an important progression for his later landscape paintings. In Asnières, within walking distance of Theo's flat in Montmartre
, Van Gogh painted parks, cafés, restaurants and the river.
Paul Signac commented on meeting up with Van Gogh, "I would encounter him at Asnières
and at Saint-Ouen
. We painted together on the riverbanks, we lunched at roadside cafes and we returned by foot to Paris via the Avenues of Saint-Ouen and Clichy. Van Gogh, wearing the blue overalls of a zinc worker, would have little dots of color painted on his shirtsleeves. Striking quite close to me, he would be yelling, gesticulating and brandishing a large size-thirty, freshly painted canvas; in this fashion he would manage to polychrome both himself and the passers-by."
. During the spring of 1887 Van Gogh stayed with Émile Bernard at Bernard's parents home in Asnières. During that time Van Gogh began to incorporate Impressionist
, Pointillist
and other influences he had been exposed to over the past year. His work lightened in "sun-drenched studies". Landscapes began to dominate his subject mater, painted in "the glory of summer and the rich colors of the vegetation". He now caught the sunlight between the leaves.
is Garden with courting couples: Square Saint-Pierre, 1887.
The summer park scene, one of his largest canvases, was one of the first paintings that Van Gogh exhibited in Paris. Here Van Gogh integrated what he had learned of Impressionism and Pointillism
from artists such as Georges Seurat and Paul Signac
into his own version of Pointillism. He used a combination of carefully placed small dots and more expressive dashes, like those in the sky, of varying color placed side by side into what is considered his most pointillistic painting. Van Gogh used Divisionism
techniques to paint woven fabrics, such as the couple in an Asnières park who share an interlocking pattern in their woven clothes. He collected yarn in different colors and tones to test color contrasts, just as Michel Eugène Chevreul
had when he developed his theory on complementary color. The Van Gogh Museum claims that the painting was made in or near Montmartre which about 7 kilometers from Asnières.
. In 1885 Seurat made Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte and used a technique of placing colored dots on a work which led a movement called "Neo-Impressionism
", or "Divisionism
" and "Pointillism
". Van Gogh was one of the artists later called "Post-Impressionists" who was influenced by Seurat's style that rejected realism and idealism to create a new genre based upon abstraction and simplicity. Van Gogh learned from Seurat the beauty in simplicity and a means to convey messages in a more optimistic, light way than was his work in Holland
. While Van Gogh could not match Seurat's precision, aspects of Pointillism were integrated into Van Gogh's work.
in the small dots for the trees, larger dots in the sky and dashes for water. Impressionism
is harnessed to create light and reflection of the water.
who he met when studying with Cormon
. Over the two years that Van Gogh was in Paris [1886—1887] Van Gogh made several paintings of bridges crossing the Seine.
preferred to show the moods and scenes of the interior of restaurants, while Van Gogh often depicts exteriors, such as this painting. Van Gogh uses vivid colors, yet also brought brightness to the painting with white paint, to depict a summer day. In the foreground three men sit at a table, one of whom is wearing a blue shirt and yellow straw hat, that Paul Signac
finds is suggestive of the artist himself. Émile Bernard
is believed to be referring to the The Restaurant de la Sirène at Asnières when he recounted to Vollard
that some of the Van Gogh's Paris works featured "smart restaurants decorated with colored awnings and oleanders".
spread across the Parisian countryside, writers spoke out and artists painted a phenomenon called by some "banlieue
" or "vague terrain". Victor Hugo
wrote a passage added to the 1861 edition of Les Miserables
:
To Van Gogh, industrialization meant loss of a revered lifestyle, the simple life of the peasant. Paul van der Griip, author of "Art and Exoticism: An Anthropology of the Yearning for Authenticity," wrote of Van Gogh's intention to portray his message of concern, "In his representations of the city he mainly paid attention to the expanding outskirts which swallowed up the countryside, whereby city and country life were often juxtaposed, sometimes in the form of trains for factories blotting the countryside." Van Gogh's painting Outskirts of Paris
(F264) illustrates the looming encroachment of factories to the countryside.
The painting seems to illustrate a line from one of Van Gogh's favorite novels L'Assommoir
by Emile Zola
: "a great forest of factory chimneys" filled the sky. The topic had been picked up by Impressionists, such as Camille Pissarro
, Claude Monet
and Armand Guillaumin
, but Van Gogh may have been most intrigued by a work he saw at the 1886 Société des Artistes Indépendants
by Charles Angrand
entitled Terrains Vagues.
Based upon the provenance
for Factories at Asnières Seen from the Quai de Clichy (F317), the work was part of Père Tanguy's
collection until 1894. Julien (Père) Tanguy sold art supplies and was an art dealer who took paintings as payment for paints, which Émile Bernard
said made entering his shop in Montmartre
, full of Impressionist paintings, like "visiting a museum". When Tanguy died in 1894, his friends staged an auction for his widow.
Asnières-sur-Seine
Asnières-sur-Seine is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France, along the river Seine. It is located from the center of Paris.-Name:...
, is the subject and location of paintings that Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
made in 1887. The works, which include parks, restaurants, riverside settings and factories, mark a break-through in Van Gogh's artistic development. In Holland
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
Van Gogh was influenced by great Dutch masters
Dutch Golden Age painting
Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history generally spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years War for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe, and led European trade,...
as well as Anton Mauve
Anton Mauve
Anthonij Rudolf Mauve was a Dutch realist painter who was a leading member of the Hague School. He signed his paintings 'A. Mauve' or with a monogrammed 'A.M.'. He was a very significant early influence on his cousin-in-law Vincent van Gogh.Most of Mauve's work depicts people and animals in...
a Dutch realist
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
painter who was a leading member of the Hague School
Hague School
The Hague School is the name given to a group of artists who lived and worked in The Hague between 1860 and 1890. Their work was heavily influenced by the realist painters of the French Barbizon school. The painters of the Hague school generally made use of relatively sombre colours, which is why...
. Mauve was a significant early influence on his cousin-in-law Vincent van Gogh. In Paris Van Gogh was exposed to and influenced by Impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
, Symbolism, Pointillism
Pointillism
Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term Pointillism was first coined by art critics in the late 1880s to ridicule the works...
, and Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
woodblock print genres.
For Van Gogh's first twelve months in Paris he absorbed a lot of information about modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
from the best of the avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
artists of the time, but in practice his work in 1886 and early 1887 varied little from his paintings in Holland. The spring of 1887 Van Gogh stayed with Émile Bernard
Émile Bernard
Émile Henri Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugene Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and...
and his parents in Asnières and the budding spring seemed to trigger an awakening within Van Gogh where he experimented with the genres to develop his personal style. In a country setting, undergoing industrialization, Van Gogh was able to depict his reverence for rural life and express concern about encroachment of industrialization. With new techniques, Van Gogh produced paintings evoked tenderness of couples taking a walk in the park or social commentary about the ways in which factories affected country life.
Paris
In 1886 Van Gogh left HollandNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
for Paris never to return. His brother Theo
Theo van Gogh (art dealer)
Theodorus "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch art dealer. He was the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh, and Theo's unfailing financial and emotional support allowed his brother to devote himself entirely to painting...
, a successful Parisian art dealer, provided Van Gogh the support and connections for an immersion in modern art. In Holland Van Gogh was influenced by great Dutch masters as well as Anton Mauve a Dutch realist painter who was a leading member of the Hague School. Mauve was a significant early influence on his cousin-in-law Vincent van Gogh. Starting March, 1886 Van Gogh studied with Fernand Cormon
Fernand Cormon
Fernand Cormon was a French painter born in Paris. He became a pupil of Alexandre Cabanel, Eugène Fromentin, and Jean-François Portaels, and one of the leading historical painters of modern France....
. During that time he lived with his brother Theo
Theo van Gogh (art dealer)
Theodorus "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch art dealer. He was the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh, and Theo's unfailing financial and emotional support allowed his brother to devote himself entirely to painting...
who leased a large apartment on Rue Lepic
Rue Lepic
Rue Lepic is an ancient road in the commune of Montmartre, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, climbing the hill of Montmartre from the boulevard de Clichy to the place Jean-Baptiste-Clément...
in Montmartre
Montmartre
Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...
with space for a studio for Van Gogh. Three months later Van Gogh abandoned his studies with Cormon, but his education continued as he met local artists. During 1886 he was introduced to Impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
artists and their works, such as Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
, Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
, Auguste Renoir, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac
Paul Signac
Paul Signac was a French neo-impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the pointillist style.-Biography:Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863...
. In 1887 Van Gogh continued to make important connections with other artists who he befriended and exchanged paintings with, such as Louis Anquetin
Louis Anquetin
Louis Anquetin was a French painter.Anquetin was born in Étrépagny, France and educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen....
, Émile Bernard
Émile Bernard
Émile Henri Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugene Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and...
, Armand Guillaumin
Armand Guillaumin
Armand Guillaumin , was a French impressionist painter and lithographer.Born Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin in Paris, he worked at his uncle's lingerie shop while attending evening drawing lessons. He also worked for a French government railway before studying at the Académie Suisse in 1861...
, Lucien Pissarro
Lucien Pissarro
Lucien Pissarro was a landscape painter, printmaker, wood engraver and designer and printer of fine books. His landscape paintings employ techniques of Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, but he also exhibited with Les XX. Apart from his landscapes he painted only a few still-lifes and family...
and Paul Signac
Paul Signac
Paul Signac was a French neo-impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the pointillist style.-Biography:Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863...
. Having been introduced to Impressionism and Pointillism
Pointillism
Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term Pointillism was first coined by art critics in the late 1880s to ridicule the works...
in Paris, Van Gogh began experimenting with related techniques, first on a series of self-portraits
Self-portrait
A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Although self-portraits have been made by artists since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid 15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting...
before he moved on to larger, more complex compositions.
Many of the Impressionist artists also shared his interest in Japanese
Japanese art
Japanese art covers a wide range of art styles and media, including ancient pottery, sculpture in wood and bronze, ink painting on silk and paper and more recently manga, cartoon, along with a myriad of other types of works of art...
wood block prints. The works of Japanese print makers
Ukiyo-e
' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...
, Hiroshige
Hiroshige
was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, and one of the last great artists in that tradition. He was also referred to as Andō Hiroshige and by the art name of Ichiyūsai Hiroshige ....
and Hokusai
Hokusai
was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. He was influenced by such painters as Sesshu, and other styles of Chinese painting...
greatly influenced Van Gogh, both for the beautiful subject matter and the style of flat patterns of colors, without shadow. Van Gogh arranged an exhibit in Paris of Japanese prints at Café du Tambourin
Agostina Segatori Sitting in the Café du Tambourin
Agostina Segatori Sitting in the Café du Tambourin was painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1887. Agostina owned the café that Van Gogh knew intimately. It was a gathering spot for Parisian artists, a place where their work was exhibited. Van Gogh, unable to pay in cash for his meals, exchanged...
.
In the two years, from 1886 through 1888, Van Gogh emerged as a sophisticated, thoughtful and provoking artist. It is through association with artists in Paris that Van Gogh began to dream of a utopian artists community where "like-minded" individuals would realize "the perfect art."
Asnières-sur-Seine
Asnières (pronouncedPronunciation
Pronunciation refers to the way a word or a language is spoken, or the manner in which someone utters a word. If one is said to have "correct pronunciation", then it refers to both within a particular dialect....
/az-nee-air/), now named Asnières-sur-Seine
Asnières-sur-Seine
Asnières-sur-Seine is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France, along the river Seine. It is located from the center of Paris.-Name:...
, a town in the northern suburbs of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
located on the banks of the Seine
Seine
The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...
and near the fortifications of Paris
Thiers wall
The Thiers wall was the last of the defensive walls of Paris. It was an enclosure constructed between 1841 and 1844 under a law enacted by the government of the French prime minister, Adolphe Thiers. It covered , along the 'boulevards des Maréchaux' of today...
. In the 19th century Parisians took a short train ride to Asnières for boating, including rowing meets; festivals; and the "unrestrained atmosphere" of its dances. The Goncourt brothers
Goncourt brothers
The Goncourt brothers were Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt , both French naturalist writers. They formed a partnership that "is possibly unique in literary history...
[Edmond and Jules de Goncourt] wrote of Asnieres in their 1867 novel Manette Salomon. Anatole, a painter, meets up with his friends near a riverside cabaret, and they all got into his boat "comrades of both sexes, approximations of painters, species of artists, vague women known only by nicknames, actresses from Grenelle
Grenelle
Grenelle is a neighbourhood in southwestern Paris, France. It is a part of the 15th arrondissement of the city.The area takes it name from Latin Garanella, meaning a wooded area where rabbits live...
, unemployed lorettes [women supported by their lovers], all tempted by the idea of the day in the country and a drink of claret in a cabaret."
Impressionists were interested in painting this area, en plein aire (English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
: in the open), for the interesting scenery: bridges over the Seine, boats along the banks of the river, outdoor cafés and treed settings.
Longing for tranquil settings, Van Gogh began to paint in Asnières in April 1887 where fellow artists Paul Signac
Paul Signac
Paul Signac was a French neo-impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the pointillist style.-Biography:Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863...
and Émile Bernard
Émile Bernard
Émile Henri Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugene Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and...
lived. Beyond the city fortifications and along the banks of the Seine, lay Asnières and the island of Grand Jatte. He experimented with a lighter, more colorful palette than used in his early Montmartre
Montmartre (Van Gogh series)
The Montmartre paintings are a group of works that Vincent van Gogh made in 1886 and 1887 of the Paris district of Montmartre while living there with his brother Theo. Rather than capture urban settings in Paris, Van Gogh preferred pastoral scenes, such as Montmartre and Asnières in the northwest...
and Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
paintings.When painting with Bernard, they often painted "in the open air." To his sister Wil
Wil van Gogh
Willemina Jacoba van Gogh , called Wil, was the youngest sister of the artist Vincent van Gogh and the art dealer Theo van Gogh. She was amongst the earliest feminists....
, Van Gogh wrote, "While painting at Asnières, I saw more colors than I have ever seen before." Instead of working in the somber colors of his early work, Van Gogh embraced the use of color and light of the Impressionists. Influenced by Impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
and Pointillism
Pointillism
Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term Pointillism was first coined by art critics in the late 1880s to ridicule the works...
, Van Gogh modified his traditional style and used vivid color, shorter brushstrokes and perspective to engage the viewer. His views of the banks of the Seine are an important progression for his later landscape paintings. In Asnières, within walking distance of Theo's flat in Montmartre
Montmartre
Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...
, Van Gogh painted parks, cafés, restaurants and the river.
Paul Signac commented on meeting up with Van Gogh, "I would encounter him at Asnières
Asnières-sur-Seine
Asnières-sur-Seine is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France, along the river Seine. It is located from the center of Paris.-Name:...
and at Saint-Ouen
Saint-Ouen, Seine-Saint-Denis
Saint-Ouen is a commune in the Seine-Saint-Denis department. It is located in the northern suburbs of Paris, France 6.6 km from the centre of Paris....
. We painted together on the riverbanks, we lunched at roadside cafes and we returned by foot to Paris via the Avenues of Saint-Ouen and Clichy. Van Gogh, wearing the blue overalls of a zinc worker, would have little dots of color painted on his shirtsleeves. Striking quite close to me, he would be yelling, gesticulating and brandishing a large size-thirty, freshly painted canvas; in this fashion he would manage to polychrome both himself and the passers-by."
Parks
Van Gogh's work in his first year in Paris retained much of the somber attitude and colors of his paintings from HollandNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. During the spring of 1887 Van Gogh stayed with Émile Bernard at Bernard's parents home in Asnières. During that time Van Gogh began to incorporate Impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
, Pointillist
Pointillism
Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term Pointillism was first coined by art critics in the late 1880s to ridicule the works...
and other influences he had been exposed to over the past year. His work lightened in "sun-drenched studies". Landscapes began to dominate his subject mater, painted in "the glory of summer and the rich colors of the vegetation". He now caught the sunlight between the leaves.
Lane in Voyer d'Argenson Park at Asnières
Lane in Voyer d'Argenson Park at Asnières is believed to decorate the wall in another Van Gogh painting, Interior of a Restaurant (F342).Couples in the Voyer d'Argenson Park at Asnières
Van Gogh's painting Couples in the Voyer d'Argenson Park at Asnières (F314) was referred to by Van Gogh as "the painting of the garden with sweethearts." The title at the Van Gogh MuseumVan Gogh Museum
The Van Gogh Museum is an art museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, featuring the works of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries. It has the largest collection of Van Gogh's paintings and drawings in the world.-Background:...
is Garden with courting couples: Square Saint-Pierre, 1887.
The summer park scene, one of his largest canvases, was one of the first paintings that Van Gogh exhibited in Paris. Here Van Gogh integrated what he had learned of Impressionism and Pointillism
Pointillism
Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term Pointillism was first coined by art critics in the late 1880s to ridicule the works...
from artists such as Georges Seurat and Paul Signac
Paul Signac
Paul Signac was a French neo-impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the pointillist style.-Biography:Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863...
into his own version of Pointillism. He used a combination of carefully placed small dots and more expressive dashes, like those in the sky, of varying color placed side by side into what is considered his most pointillistic painting. Van Gogh used Divisionism
Divisionism
Divisionism was the characteristic style in Neo-Impressionist painting defined by the separation of colors into individual dots or patches which interacted optically....
techniques to paint woven fabrics, such as the couple in an Asnières park who share an interlocking pattern in their woven clothes. He collected yarn in different colors and tones to test color contrasts, just as Michel Eugène Chevreul
Michel Eugène Chevreul
Michel Eugène Chevreul was a French chemist whose work with fatty acids led to early applications in the fields of art and science. He is credited with the discovery of margaric acid and designing an early form of soap made from animal fats and salt...
had when he developed his theory on complementary color. The Van Gogh Museum claims that the painting was made in or near Montmartre which about 7 kilometers from Asnières.
The Seine
The Seine with the Pont de la Grande Jatte
The Seine with the Pont de la Grande Jatte (F304) is a painting made by Van Gogh of a favored area on the Seine near Asnières. It was made during a period where Van Gogh explored the use of "dots" of paint set alongside contrasting colors, influenced by Georges Seurat, who introduced PointillismPointillism
Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term Pointillism was first coined by art critics in the late 1880s to ridicule the works...
. In 1885 Seurat made Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte and used a technique of placing colored dots on a work which led a movement called "Neo-Impressionism
Neo-impressionism
Neo-impressionism was coined by French art critic Félix Fénéon in 1886 to describe an art movement founded by Georges Seurat. Seurat’s greatest masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, marked the beginning of this movement when it first made its appearance at an exhibition...
", or "Divisionism
Divisionism
Divisionism was the characteristic style in Neo-Impressionist painting defined by the separation of colors into individual dots or patches which interacted optically....
" and "Pointillism
Pointillism
Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term Pointillism was first coined by art critics in the late 1880s to ridicule the works...
". Van Gogh was one of the artists later called "Post-Impressionists" who was influenced by Seurat's style that rejected realism and idealism to create a new genre based upon abstraction and simplicity. Van Gogh learned from Seurat the beauty in simplicity and a means to convey messages in a more optimistic, light way than was his work in Holland
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. While Van Gogh could not match Seurat's precision, aspects of Pointillism were integrated into Van Gogh's work.
Bank of the Seine
In Bank of the Seine (F293) Van Gogh uses PointillismPointillism
Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term Pointillism was first coined by art critics in the late 1880s to ridicule the works...
in the small dots for the trees, larger dots in the sky and dashes for water. Impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
is harnessed to create light and reflection of the water.
Bridges across the Seine at Asnières
Bridges across the Seine at Asnières (F301) was painted in open air and bright sunlight. The scene depicts railway bridges over the river. Van Gogh uses light and reflection effectively in this painting. The stone piers of the bridge are reflected in the water and white paint is used for highlights. A woman dressed in pink with a red parasol are the focal point of the composition. The painting is part of a group of suburban landscapes along with a painting in Oxford, both of which Van Gogh had placed in red frames. Van Gogh found this setting through his friend Émile BernardÉmile Bernard
Émile Henri Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugene Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and...
who he met when studying with Cormon
Fernand Cormon
Fernand Cormon was a French painter born in Paris. He became a pupil of Alexandre Cabanel, Eugène Fromentin, and Jean-François Portaels, and one of the leading historical painters of modern France....
. Over the two years that Van Gogh was in Paris [1886—1887] Van Gogh made several paintings of bridges crossing the Seine.
Bridge of Asnières
Van Gogh wrote of making Bridges of Asnières (F303), "I've been worried by the sunset with figures and a bridge that I spoke of to Bernard. The bad weather prevented me working on the spot and I’ve completely ruined it trying to finish it at home. However I began again at once, the same subject on another canvas, but as the weather was quite different, in grey tones and without figures."Walk Along the Banks of the Seine Near Asnières
Walk Along the Banks of the Seine Near Asnières also called Riverbank at Asnières (F299) illustrates Van Gogh's technique of using "short, rapid strokes of color the capture the atmosphere of a particular place", something he used with other paintings along the Seine.Restaurants
The Restaurant de la Sirène at Asnières (F312)
Impressionistic influences are evident in The Restaurant de la Sirène at Asnières (F312) in the dashes of paint in bright color.The Restaurant de la Sirène at Asnières (F313)
In creating The Restaurant de la Sirène at Asnières (F313) Van Gogh is clearly influenced by the Impressionist movement, while making it very much his own style. Impressionists like RenoirRenoir
-People with the surname Renoir :* Pierre-Auguste Renoir , French painter* Pierre Renoir , French actor and son of Pierre-Auguste Renoir* Jean Renoir , French film director and son of Pierre-Auguste Renoir...
preferred to show the moods and scenes of the interior of restaurants, while Van Gogh often depicts exteriors, such as this painting. Van Gogh uses vivid colors, yet also brought brightness to the painting with white paint, to depict a summer day. In the foreground three men sit at a table, one of whom is wearing a blue shirt and yellow straw hat, that Paul Signac
Paul Signac
Paul Signac was a French neo-impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the pointillist style.-Biography:Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863...
finds is suggestive of the artist himself. Émile Bernard
Émile Bernard
Émile Henri Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugene Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and...
is believed to be referring to the The Restaurant de la Sirène at Asnières when he recounted to Vollard
Ambroise Vollard
Ambroise Vollard is regarded as one of the most important dealers in French contemporary art at the beginning of the twentieth century...
that some of the Van Gogh's Paris works featured "smart restaurants decorated with colored awnings and oleanders".
Exterior of a Restaurant at Asnières
The building's purpose in Exterior of a Restaurant at Asnières (F321) is suggested by the open door, potted plants and outdoor table. The painting portrays a mid-summer day, there is no shade and the colors of the painting are warm summer colors. The planter brims with flowering oleander blossoms. Both the composition and color scheme are simple, the key colors are yellow in the wall and paving and green in the shutters and plants. The motif was first inspired by a Parisian restaurant with a row of six planters filled with shrubs against a yellow wall with green shutters. The colors and shutters were used again in Vincent's House in Arles (The Yellow House) that he made in Arles in 1888.Factories
As industrializationIndustrialisation
Industrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one...
spread across the Parisian countryside, writers spoke out and artists painted a phenomenon called by some "banlieue
Banlieue
In francophone areas, banlieues are the "outskirts" of a city: the zone around a city that is under the city's rule.Banlieues are translated as "suburbs", as these are also residential areas on the outer edge of a city, but the connotations of the term "banlieue" in France can be different from...
" or "vague terrain". Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
wrote a passage added to the 1861 edition of Les Miserables
Les Misérables
Les Misérables , translated variously from the French as The Miserable Ones, The Wretched, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, or The Victims), is an 1862 French novel by author Victor Hugo and is widely considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century...
:
“To wander in a kind of reverie, to take a stroll as they call it, is a good way for a philosopher to spend his time: particularly in that kind of bastard countryside, somewhat ugly but bizarre, made up of two different natures, which surrounds certain great cities, notably Paris. To observe the banlieueBanlieueIn francophone areas, banlieues are the "outskirts" of a city: the zone around a city that is under the city's rule.Banlieues are translated as "suburbs", as these are also residential areas on the outer edge of a city, but the connotations of the term "banlieue" in France can be different from...
is to observe an amphibian. End of trees, beginning of roofs, end of grass, beginning of paving stones, end of ploughed fields, beginning of shops, the end of the beaten track, the beginning of passions, the end of the murmur or things divine, the beginning of the noise of humankinds -- all this holds an extraordinary interest. And, thus, in these unattractive places, forever marked by the passer-by with the epithet sad, the promenades, apparently aimless, of the dreamer.
To Van Gogh, industrialization meant loss of a revered lifestyle, the simple life of the peasant. Paul van der Griip, author of "Art and Exoticism: An Anthropology of the Yearning for Authenticity," wrote of Van Gogh's intention to portray his message of concern, "In his representations of the city he mainly paid attention to the expanding outskirts which swallowed up the countryside, whereby city and country life were often juxtaposed, sometimes in the form of trains for factories blotting the countryside." Van Gogh's painting Outskirts of Paris
Outskirts of Paris (Van Gogh)
Outskirts of Paris are paintings that Vincent van Gogh made in 1887, while he was living in Paris with his brother Theo.-Outskirts of Paris, pastoral settings:...
(F264) illustrates the looming encroachment of factories to the countryside.
Factories at Asnières Seen from the Quai de Clichy
Factories as Asnières is a modern landscape depicting industrial growth as it takes over rural plains, a phenomenon called by some "banlieue" or "vague terrain". A fence demarcates the line between the flowing rural field and emission-generating industrial complex. Van Gogh's used horizontal bands to deliberately depicts the earthy hues and movement of the field in contrast to the solid, carefully drawn geometric shapes of the factories and chimneys.The painting seems to illustrate a line from one of Van Gogh's favorite novels L'Assommoir
L'Assommoir
L'Assommoir is the seventh novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Usually considered one of Zola's masterpieces, the novel—a harsh and uncompromising study of alcoholism and poverty in the working-class districts of Paris—was a huge commercial success and established...
by Emile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
: "a great forest of factory chimneys" filled the sky. The topic had been picked up by Impressionists, such as Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...
, Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
and Armand Guillaumin
Armand Guillaumin
Armand Guillaumin , was a French impressionist painter and lithographer.Born Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin in Paris, he worked at his uncle's lingerie shop while attending evening drawing lessons. He also worked for a French government railway before studying at the Académie Suisse in 1861...
, but Van Gogh may have been most intrigued by a work he saw at the 1886 Société des Artistes Indépendants
Société des Artistes Indépendants
—The Société des Artistes Indépendants formed in Paris in summer 1884 choosing the device "No jury nor awards" . Albert Dubois-Pillet, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac were among its founders...
by Charles Angrand
Charles Angrand
Charles Angrand was a French artist who gained renown for his Neo-Impressionist paintings and drawings. He was an important member of the Parisian avant-garde art scene in the late 1880s and early 1890s.-Early life and work:...
entitled Terrains Vagues.
Based upon the provenance
Provenance
Provenance, from the French provenir, "to come from", refers to the chronology of the ownership or location of an historical object. The term was originally mostly used for works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including science and computing...
for Factories at Asnières Seen from the Quai de Clichy (F317), the work was part of Père Tanguy's
Portrait of Père Tanguy
Portrait of Père Tanguy, painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1887, is one of his three paintings of Julien Tanguy. The three works demonstrate a progression in Van Gogh's artistic style after his arrival in Paris. The first is somber, and formed from a simple composition. The second introduces Van...
collection until 1894. Julien (Père) Tanguy sold art supplies and was an art dealer who took paintings as payment for paints, which Émile Bernard
Émile Bernard
Émile Henri Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugene Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and...
said made entering his shop in Montmartre
Montmartre
Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...
, full of Impressionist paintings, like "visiting a museum". When Tanguy died in 1894, his friends staged an auction for his widow.