Garden at Arles is a beautiful 73 x 92 cm(28.7 x 36.2 in) oil painting by the distinguished Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. This stunning work was painted in 1888, one of the most productive periods in the painter’s career. In his first years in Arles, Van Gogh grew more confident, and his manner went through an intense radicalization. His use of oil paint became thicker, the colors more intense and saturated, and the simplification of the forms more evident, while also creating complex visual patterns with different kinds of brushstrokes. Garden at Arles is an excellent example of the painter’s mature phase, and one can hardly not be amazed by the colorful and graphic quality of the painting.

This composition is exemplary regarding Van Gogh’s brushwork. Absorbing Pointillist influences, the painter went on to explore artificial color optical relations. The alternating lines and dots create eye-catching patterns on the whole composition. The road and the sky, with their flatness, become resting points for the eye. In the other regions of the painting, though, the viewer has a constant flow of color, texture, harmony, and detail. The blotches of paint on the garden alternates from light warm green, orange, lilac-like blue, ultramarine blue, and a muted orange. The effect is akin to Van Gogh’s intense drawings, full of lines and texture.

A previous couple of years in Vincent van Gogh’s life were pivotal as well. He was living with his closest friend: his brother Theo. Theo was an art dealer in Paris, a job that Vincent took his shot in his early years but grew immensely dissatisfied with its logic and market. Theo had been writing excitedly to his brother, telling about the recent rise of the Impressionists. Theo’s descriptions seduced the Dutch artist, and his work also changed in the French capital. He was already using brighter colors and began a long and intimate relationship with complementary contrast, one of the defining traits of his masterpieces.

In Arles, this change took a step further. In his writings, Vincent always linked the Southern setting to what he felt when looking at Ukiyo-e prints. Inspired by the likes of Hiroshige, the flatness of Van Gogh’s compositions is accentuated, his use of earthy colors and darker settings disappear, the creation of shadow and lighting following the logic complementary colors. Some specific colors are abundant in these paintings: his characteristic use of intense yellow, varied use of green, turquoise-like tones for the sky, and beautiful reds and oranges.