Avenue of Plane Trees near Arles Station

The Avenue of Plane Trees near Arles Station holds a specific place in Van Gogh's life at Arles: the station was his primary connection to the world beyond the city, the point through which letters to and from Theo passed, through which painting supplies arrived from Paris, through which visitors eventually came and went. Walking along the plane tree avenue to the station was a regular part of his daily existence, and painting it was both an act of documentary attention and a celebration of the city's specific built environment. The plane trees — their mottled bark, their spreading canopy, the dappled shade they cast across the avenue — were quite different from the cypresses and olive trees he associated with the Provençal countryside, being urban trees of a cultivated, civic character. The Musée Rodin in Paris, which holds this work, is an unusual home for a Van Gogh — the museum is primarily devoted to Rodin's sculpture and the history of his studio — but the foundation's broader collection includes significant works by contemporary artists. Van Gogh was aware of Rodin through the French press and the wider art world of the 1880s, though there is no record of direct contact between them. The plane tree avenue demonstrates his mature Arles technique applied to an urban subject: the specific botanical character of the trees observed with as much care as any rural landscape.

The plane trees form a formal avenue receding into depth, their spreading canopies creating a ceiling of foliage above the composition. Van Gogh renders the distinctive mottled bark with observational specificity. His warm Arles palette captures the Mediterranean light filtering through the foliage. The composition's perspective recession is handled with convincing depth.