Olive Grove, Saint-Rémy

Olive Grove, Saint-Rémy

1889

Oil on canvas

Mått 74,50 x 92,50 cm Ram 86,00 x 105,00 x 5,50 cm

GKM 0590

Purchased with funds from anonymous donors, 1917

Scattered across the flat slope are rows of gnarled olive trees. With the sun so low they cast long blue shadows over the reddish-brown soil. The sky is fading from yellow at the horizon to green, and is veiled with thin wisps of blue and red cloud. The treetops are tinged with green and blue with splashes of orange. The contrast between the red tones and the blue shadows makes for an evocatively autumnal picture. The artist has used short, distinct brushstrokes that convey an impression of vibrating motion. The roughly drawn tree trunks seem to twist, human-like, adding to the painting’s intensity and anxiety. In a letter to Theo, Van Gogh wrote of the series of paintings of olive groves of which Olive Grove, Saint-Rémy was one: »It’s silver, sometimes more blue, sometimes greenish, bronzed, whitening on ground that is yellow, pink, purplish or orangeish to dull red ochre. But very difficult, very difficult.« The first version (in the Kröller-Müller Museum) is less stylized; in the Gothenburg Museum of Art painting, Van Gogh has more clearly worked up the motif with his characteristic brushwork. The one that he thought most successful he gave to his friend Dr Gachet, his doctor. Another version with the cooler shade of blue is in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and may well have been painted the same day. In the paintings that ended the series, he has included olive-picking peasants. (The final painting is in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.) The Olive Grove, Saint-Rémy in Gothenburg is instead an expression of the artist’s solitary encounter with the landscape, which in his hands exudes both beauty and melancholy. Vincent van Gogh’s pictures have been interpreted as bearing the imprint of his fragile psyche. Yet Van Gogh’s work was always informed by his careful observation of Nature, where the visible was processed into a new vision of heightened colours and expressive brushwork. Kristoffer Arvidsson from The Collection Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenburg 2014

Friction of Ideas: van Gogh, Gauguin, Bernard, Göteborg, Göteborgs konstmuseum, 19/07/2014 - 19/10/2014 Vincent van Gogh zwischen Erde und Himmel: die Landschaften, Basel, Kunstmuseum Basel, 26/04/2009 - 27/09/2009 Gauguin y los orígenes del simbolismo, Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, 28/09/2004 - 09/01/2005 Impressionismen och Norden. Franskt avantgarde i det sena 1800-talet och konsten i Norden 1870-1920, Köpenhamn, Statens Museum for Kunst, 22/02/2003 - 25/05/2003, no. 53 Impressionismen och Norden. Franskt avantgarde i det sena 1800-talet och konsten i Norden 1870-1920, Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, 25/09/2002 - 19/01/2003, no. 53 Van Gogh & Gauguin, Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, 09/02/2002 - 02/06/2002 Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South, Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, 22/09/2001 - 13/01/2002 Paul Gauguin. Ett fjärran paradis, Göteborg, Göteborgs konstmuseum, 04/11/2000 - 28/01/2001 Vincent van Gogh und die Moderne 1890-1914, Essen, Museum Folkwang, 11/08/1990 - 04/11/1990 Vincent van Gogh. Schilderijen, Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, 30/03/1990 - 29/07/1990, no. 107 Van Gogh in St. Rémy and Auvers, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 12/11/1986 - 22/03/1987, no. 41 Luther und die Folgen für die Kunst, Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle, 11/11/1983 - 08/01/1984 Cézanne till Picasso. Fransk konst i svensk ägo, Stockholm, Liljevalchs konsthall, 03/09/1954 - 10/10/1954, no. 147 Vincent van Gogh. Utställning anordnad till förmån för svenska hollandshjälpen, Malmö, Malmö Museum, 29/05/1946 - 16/06/1946, no. 84 Vincent van Gogh. Utställning anordnad till förmån för svenska hollandshjälpen, Göteborg, Göteborgs konstmuseum, 03/05/1946 - 26/05/1946, no. 84 Vincent van Gogh. Utställning anordnad till förmån för svenska hollandshjälpen, Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, 08/03/1946 - 28/04/1946, no. 84 Cinquante tableaux de Vincent van Gogh, Paris, Galerie E. Druet, 08/11/1909 - 20/11/1909, no. 5

Impressionismen och Norden. Franskt avantgarde i det sena 1800-talet och konsten i Norden 1870-1920, utg. av Torsten Gunnarsson och Per Hedström, Stockholm, 2002, no. 53, p. 108, 306, ill. p. 113 Axel L. Romdahl, Konstmonologer i Göteborgs Museum, P. A. Norstedt & Söners Förlag, Stockholm (1911) 1921, p. 72, ill. p. 73 Nils Ryndel, Franskt måleri i Göteborgs konstmuseum. With a summary in English, Göteborgs konstmuseum, Göteborg 1961, p. 28-30, ill. p. 26 Gunnar Ekelöf, ”Den store lärljungen”, Konstrevy årgång XXII häfte 3 1946, 1946., p. 105 Barbro Ahlfort, Lena Boëthius, Ingmari Desaix, Folke Edwards, Björn Fredlund, Jonas Gavel, Barbro Löfquist, Anne Pettersson, Håkan Wettre, Göteborgs konstmuseum dess historia och samlingar, red. Håkan Wettre, Palmeblad, Göteborg 1992., p. 84, ill. p. 84 Kristoffer Arvidsson, Per Dahlström, Björn Fredlund, Anna Hyltze, Philippa Nanfeldt, Isabella Nilsson, Johan Sjöström, Samlingen Göteborgs konstmuseum, red. Kristoffer Arvidsson, Per Dahlström, Anna Hyltze, Göteborgs konstmuseum, Göteborg 2014., p. 272-273, ill. p. 270-271 Ragnar Hoppe, Cézanne till Picasso. Fransk konst i svensk ägo, Liljevalchs konsthall, Moderna Museets Vänner, Bonnier, Stockholm 1954., no. 147, ill. p. opag. Nienke Bakkeroch Teio Meedendorpoch Nicole R. Myersoch Kathrin Pilz och Muriel Geldofoch Louis van Tilborgh, Van Gogh and the Olive Groves, red. Nienke Bakker och Nicole R. Myers, Dallas Museum of Art, Yale University Press, Dallas, New Haven, London, 2022., no. 13, p. 138-139, 144-150, ill. p. 14, 142 Anne-Birgitte Forsmark, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Bernard. Dramat i Arles, Ordrupgaard, Charlottenlund, 2014., no. 151, p. 171, ill. p. 170-171 Cornelia Homburg, Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers, red. Cornelia Homburg, Yale University Press, London, 2024., ill. p. 26