Arlésiennes (Mistral)

Late in 1888 Gauguin spent about two months with Van Gogh in Arles. Their shared work was intended to begin an artists’ community, but their relationship grew increasingly difficult. This painting belongs to that stay. The museum identifies the setting as the public garden opposite their house, transformed into an unusually flat space of sharp colour areas and obstructed movement.

The nearer women wrap themselves in dark shawls and cover the lower part of their faces, gestures the museum relates to the cold mistral. Greenish and ochre planes describe their faces with little gradual shading. Their blue-black clothing joins into a large mass. Closely grouped figures and steeply tilted ground complicate the usual reading of movement through a garden.

Two tall orange forms at the right resemble cones. The museum tentatively identifies them as straw coverings protecting plants from frost. Their simplification makes that caution necessary. Nearly human in scale, they echo the figures’ elongated shapes. An ordinary garden object becomes a major compositional element, sharply contrasting with green ground and bluish areas behind it.

A face emerges within the large foreground bush. The museum identifies it as an intentional inclusion. Dark marks suggest eyes and other features within the foliage. This motif changes the scene by allowing a resemblance between plant and person. It can be read as Gauguin’s way of introducing mystery into everyday life while retaining a real place and ordinary walk.

A red fence crosses the lower canvas. Pointed boards repeat rhythmically with narrow white gaps. Together with the bush, it appears to obstruct the nearer women’s path. This is a spatial observation rather than evidence of their intentions. Red against green makes the barrier conspicuous, functioning as a strong colour plane while remaining recognizable as a fence.

Two more women approach in the distance, their light collars forming triangles. Their smaller scale indicates distance, while the steeply raised ground and green band emphasize surface pattern. Perspective cues coexist with pronounced flatness. Gauguin reshapes familiar space according to colour and rhythm while retaining enough clues to identify a public garden.

The artists’ time together ended in crisis, but the painting does not justify treating every object as a direct code for their relationship. Its documented setting can instead be compared with its visible construction. Familiar figures, cold wind, plant coverings and the deliberately included face reveal a particular route from everyday observation towards forms capable of several simultaneous readings.