Poplars in the Mountains

The leaves have begun to fall in October of 1889 as Vincent anchors the legs of his easel in rocks and paints two yellowing trees against a brilliant blue and white sky with the Alpille mountain range in between.  It is Vincent’s last Autumn and he has just begun painting outdoors again as he ventures beyond the doors and walls of the asylum at Saint Paul de Mausole, further seeking to capture the essence of Provence landscapes.  He has recovered from his most recent bout of illness which kept him confined for over two months of the past summer, and along with the Mulberry Tree, he will paint the Poplars beneath a dome of autumn in the midi.

Under a cobalt sky, brushed on the canvas in thick lateral strokes, Vincent selects two poplars and centers them before teal and blue-green Alpille mountains in the background as some lateral white and eggshell clouds scud through.  The poplars are vertical strokes in curved dashes of yellows and greens with blue-green trunks outlined in darker thin margins. In the foreground are the ancient white block stones of Glanum, a Roman quarry and small city of centuries past which is only a short walk from the Saint Paul asylum.  Unpainted canvas at the outer edges top, right and bottom evoke images of Vincent clamping his canvas to an easel dug in the ground against the October Provence mistrals.

The Street View reveals a similar vista as the one Vincent contemplated a hundred years ago and the Compare button puts the mulberry tree and poplars canvases side by side.

Vincent’s illness is recurring unpredictably at this point in his life (38 years) and his most recent bout has shaken his confidence and outlook.  While he is lucid and full of life most of the time, he is stricken for days or weeks at a time with a mental and physical illness which leaves him catatonic and unintelligible.  He will then either abruptly or gradually recover his senses and be completely free of the malady for many months at a time.  This last attack has been his worst to date, resulting in his art supplies and tools being taken from his room after his attendant found he had been drinking turpentine and eating his paints straight from their tubes while in its grips.

Present day physicians and psychiatrists examining the words of Dr. Peyron in Saint Remy and later Dr. Gachet in Auvers sur Oise posthumously surmise Vincent was stricken by a combination of existing hereditary mental illness (a type of epilepsy) along with an advancing case of syphilis (both he and Theo had been treated in Paris for the disease).  Mental illness was not uncommon in the Van Gogh family tree and the hedonistic tendencies of belle epoch bohemian artists in Paris only exacerbated his condition.  By the time he commits himself to St Remy, he has put aside the wine and absinthe and his physical strength has returned but he is powerless against the attacks on his mind.  Within six months of Vincent’s apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound and death, Theo will be committed to an asylum and also pass away and leave his wife Jo with the work and letters of the brothers to save, organize and bestow.  Her son, Vincent’s nephew and namesake, will found the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 1973 and live to see its first five years of operation.

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Cleveland Museum of Art – Two Poplars on a Road Through the Hills

Painting, Oil on Canvas – 61 x 45.5 cm Size 12 paysage
Saint-Rémy: October, 1889
Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland, Ohio, United States of America, North America
F: 638, JH: 1797