A Lane in the Public Garden at Arles

Van Gogh conceived a grand decorative scheme for the Yellow House in Arles, and the Poet's Garden — the public garden across the Place Lamartine from his door — was central to it. He made at least four paintings of the garden in October 1888, intending them as a series of harmonious outdoor spaces that would convey to Gauguin (who was expected imminently) the particular quality of the Provençal landscape. He gave the garden a literary identity by associating it with the medieval Provençal poets — Petrarch, Boccaccio — who he imagined had once walked in the region, though his letters to Theo acknowledge this was more wish than documented fact. Gauguin finally arrived at the Yellow House on October 23rd, just days before this canvas was painted, and his presence lent the garden series an additional dimension as works made in a brief period of shared artistic life. Now at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo.

The composition is anchored by a strong tree trunk dividing the foreground, with the path receding between rows of trees. Warm autumn tones — golden yellows, deep greens, flashes of red — are applied with vigorous, upward brushstrokes. The path is built with thick ochre impasto. The overall effect is one of sunlit enclosure — a garden as refuge and sanctuary.