Arlésiennes (Mistral)

During the winter of 1888, Paul Gauguin spent a troubled two months with Vincent van Gogh in the southern French city of Arles. He painted the enigmatic Arlésiennes (Mistral) during this stay. The painters’ time together was intended to be the beginning of an artist’s colony, but their relationship grew increasingly tense, and Van Gogh’s mental health deteriorated.

Set directly across the street from the house they shared, the painting depicts four women somberly processing through a public garden. The space is tilted radically upward, and complex, three-dimensional forms are reduced to simple, flat shapes. For example, twin orange-yellow cones—probably protective hay coverings to shield plants from the frost—tower at the right like abstracted human figures. Wrapped in dark shawls, the two closest women cover their mouths against the frigid air. Their gestures are withdrawn and introspective, and their passage is seemingly blocked by a bright red fence and large green bush. Perhaps the composition’s oddest element is the appearance of a face within the bush. This face—an intentional inclusion by the artist—adds an uncanny, watchful presence to the scene. It exemplifies Gauguin’s exploration of what he believed to be the mysteries that suffuse everyday life.