1889-06 · Saint-Rémy-de-Provence · Knot of Motif

The Olive Groves

Rather than reconstruct a historical Garden of Olives, he returned to the ones in front of him.

F712 Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background 1889

Olive trees before the rolling Alpilles, with a great white cloud above; trunks, ridges and cloud are all drawn in curving lines. In September 1889 Van Gogh wrote of “the olive trees with white cloud and background of mountains”, which, like the Moonrise and the Night effect, were “exaggerations from the point of view of the arrangement, their lines are contorted like those of the ancient woodcuts.”
F654 Olive Picking 1889
F656 The Olive Orchard 1889

Three women pick olives beneath the trees, one standing on a ladder; the ground leans to violet, the trunks twist, the foliage is grey-green and the sky is flushed with pink. In mid-December 1889 Van Gogh described the canvas he was working on: “the sky is entirely pink, and 3 small figures pink also,” painted from memory after the study of the same size done on the spot, “because I want a far-off thing like a vague memory softened by time.” The editors of the letters identify this version as that canvas.

The Colour Experimenter

"The white sky and the white and green ground, with a little violet and pink in the trunks." The smallest-scale sentence the colour experimenter ever wrote. Most people would say an olive tree is green; he said one trunk holds "a little violet and a little pink." Under Provençal sun he saw one layer more than ordinary eyes — the silver underside of leaves, the sun-baked pink of the trunk, the violet reflections in shadow — each treated as an independent colour unit and recorded. The colour experimenter at his highest resolution: seeing seven colours inside green.

Synaesthetic Precision

Twisting trunks, twisting brushwork — most observers call this emotional; he called it harsh realism. Provençal olive trees do grow that way — their trunks have actually been wrung by wind, by time, by the orientation of the mountains. He saw the physical fact of being twisted and translated it back with brushwork that twists the same way. Synaesthetic precision is here the opposite of projection — recognising the existing twist in the object, not imposing one. The olive tree is shaped that way already; he just refused to straighten it.

Painting

From summer into winter, Van Gogh returned to the olive trees. Three works here take different approaches: Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background joins curved trunks, mountain ridges and a white cloud in a web of lines; Olive Picking places a ladder and workers beneath grey-green foliage; The Olive Orchard again shows a ladder and three pickers, with pale pink in the sky and figures, and violet and yellow ochre on the ground. In November 1889 he wrote that he had painted five large canvases that month, in addition to three earlier olive-tree studies already with Theo.

Letter

1889. He wrote to Theo: "Gauguin and Bernard now talk of painting Christs in the Garden of Olives. I don't want to paint imaginary things. The olive trees are too beautiful for me to dare to invent them." Another: "The olive trees with the white sky and the white and green ground, with a little violet and pink in the trunks." A third: "What I have done is a rather harsh realism beside what they do." The three sentences, taken together, are an artistic manifesto: not gods, what is seen; not invention, but looking; harsh realism.

Place

The olive groves around Saint-Rémy. They surround the Saint-Paul Hospital. The olive trees of Provence carry hundreds of years — trunks wrung, fissured, like the bones of an old hand. Through summer and autumn he went daily to the same grove, watching the same tree change colour under different light. Gauguin was in Pont-Aven painting an imagined Christ at the same time. Vincent was outside the asylum painting a real olive tree. This was his clearest refusal of symbolism.

The Colour Experimenter

Synaesthetic Precision

before

In late 1889, Gauguin sent him a sketch of a Christ in the Garden of Olives, and Bernard sent photographs of recent biblical compositions. They reopened a question about religious subjects and painting from imagination.

now

He rejected their biblical Garden of Olives. If he remained there, he wrote, he would paint the olive picking as it could still be seen, with the human figure in correct proportion; before entering that subject, he needed more serious studies. He then worked among the olive trees, testing grey skies against yellow earth, and purple ground and foliage against yellow sky.

after

He wrote that he had completed five large olive-tree canvases, while also calling the year unsatisfactory. The letter records a continuing search, not a final answer.

Events

1889-06 The Colour Experimenter · Letter 783
Stepped beyond the asylum wall to paint the first olives. 'The olive trees with the white sky and the white and green ground, with a little violet and pink in the trunks.' The smallest-scale sentence the colour experimenter ever wrote
1889-08 Synaesthetic Precision · Letter 805
End of summer — twisted olive trunks turning into twisting brushstrokes under his hand. Not 'emotional' but 'harsh realism' — the trees actually grow that way
1889-10 Synaesthetic Precision · Letter 822
Heard that Gauguin and Bernard had both painted imagined Christs in the Garden of Olives. Vincent refused: 'I don't want to paint imaginary things. The olive trees are too beautiful for me to dare to invent them.'
1889-11 Synaesthetic Precision · Letter 822
'What I have done is a rather harsh realism beside what they do.' An artistic manifesto: not gods, what is seen; not invention, but looking
1889-11 The Colour Experimenter · Letter 823
Painted five large olive-grove canvases in November; with the three earlier studies already with Theo, he kept testing the trees' forms and colours in changing light
1889-12 The Colour Experimenter · Letter 823
Completed Olive Picking — peasant women bending to gather fruit. The same name and shape as Millet's peasants, but the colour is Provençal silver and violet

From the Letters

Gauguin et Bernard parlent maintenant de peindre des Christ au jardin des oliviers. Moi je ne veux pas peindre de choses imaginaires. Les oliviers sont trop beaux pour que j'ose les inventer.

Gauguin and Bernard now talk of painting Christs in the Garden of Olives. I don't want to paint imaginary things. The olive trees are too beautiful for me to dare to invent them.

Letter 822

Les oliviers avec le ciel blanc et le terrain blanc et vert, avec un peu de violet et de rose dans les troncs.

The olive trees with the white sky and the white and green ground, with a little violet and pink in the trunks.

Letter 823

Ce que j'ai fait c'est un réalisme plutôt dur à côté de ce qu'ils font.

What I have done is a rather harsh realism beside what they do.

Letter 822

Letter Sources

Van Gogh letter records referenced on this page, linked to the Van Gogh Letters Project. vangoghletters.org