Langlois Bridge at Arles (Van Gogh Series) - Three Paintings With Similar Compositions

Three Paintings With Similar Compositions

The Langlois Bridge at Arles with Women Washing is one of van Gogh's most iconic and best loved paintings, acknowledged as the first masterpiece of his Arles period. It depicts common canal-side activities. A little yellow cart crosses the bridge while a group of women in smocks and multicoloured caps wash linen on the shore. Van Gogh skillfully uses his knowledge of color theory and the "law of simultaneous contrasts" in this work. The grass is depicted with alternating brush strokes of red-orange and green. Yellow and blue complementary colors are used in the bridge, sky and river. Use of complementary colors intensifies the impact of each color creating a "vibrant and coloristically unified whole."

Naomi Mauer, author of "The Pursuit of Spiritual Wisdom: The Thought and Art of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin" describes Van Gogh's technical and artistic execution of this painting.

"Compositionally, the vertical and horizontal geometry of the bridge and its reflection in the water create a great central cross which imparts a classical symmetry and equilibrium to the canvas. This central geometric framework, which is echoed and enclosed by the bands of sky above and the bank below, is relieved and enlivened by the great undulating sweep of the hill and shore, the round knot of washerwomen amid the circular ripples of the water, and the flexible, slightly curved grasses at the right. Both formally and chromatically, the Bridge of Langlois demonstrates Vincent's abstraction of nature to its essential coloristic and formal elements, and his creation from these components of a harmoniously interwoven unity in which humanity and its works are perfectly integrated."

For The Langlois Bridge at Arles (watercolor) Van Gogh manages to create precise details of the bridge, such as the hardware, iron supports, braces and chain pulleys with watercolor.