''Fall of Leaves '' (original French title: ''Chûte de feuilles''), or ''Falling Autumn Leaves'' is a pair of paintings (in French ''pendants'', i. e. ''counterparts'') by the Dutch painter

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

. They were executed during the two months at the end of 1888 that his artist friend

Paul Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...

spent with him at

The Yellow House ''The Yellow House'' ( nl, Het gele huis), alternatively named ''The Street'' ( nl, De straat), is an 1888 oil painting by the 19th-century Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. The house was the right wing of 2 Place Lamartine, A ...

Arles Arles (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Arle ; Classical la, Arelate) is a coastal city and commune in the South of France, a subprefecture in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in the former province of ...

, France.

Les Alyscamps

Following months of correspondence,

joined van Gogh in Arles in October 1888. Both were intent on depicting a "non-naturalist landscape". The paintings are among the first works that the pair painted following Gauguin's arrival. Van Gogh and Gauguin visited an ancient Roman necropolis, '' Les Alyscamps'', which had been built outside the city walls. Over time the grounds were overtaken by factories and the railroad. The city relocated some of the

sarcophagi A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek ...

in a long alley lined with benches and poplar trees that led to a Romanesque chapel which became known as the ''Allée des Tombeaux''. It quickly became a

lover's lane A lovers' lane is a secluded area where people kiss, make out, or engage in sexual activity. These areas range from parking lots in secluded rural areas to places with extraordinary views of a cityscape or other features. "Lovers' lanes" are ty ...

celebrated throughout France.Naifeh and Smith pp. 667-8

The paintings

During a period of bad weather van Gogh worked on a second pair of "Les Alyscamps" paintings, which were taken from a vantage point above the lane and looking through the

poplar tree ''Populus'' is a genus of 25–30 species of deciduous flowering plants in the family Salicaceae, native to most of the Northern Hemisphere. English names variously applied to different species include poplar (), aspen, and cottonwood. The ...

s, made in the studio. The yellow-orange of the leaves contrasts with the violet-blue trunks of the poplar trees. This painting, made shortly after Gauguin arrives in Arles, was unique in van Gogh's body of work and representative of the artistic achievements realised by two great artists working together. To

Émile Bernard Émile Henri Bernard (28 April 1868 – 16 April 1941) was a French Post-Impressionist painter and writer, who had artistic friendships with Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Eugène Boch, and at a later time, Paul Cézanne. Most of his nota ...

, van Gogh described the collaborative process as a pooling of thoughts and techniques where each artist creates their own unique work that is different, yet complements one another. Van Gogh believed that his pair of paintings ''Falling Autumn Leaves'' was just such a collaborative effort influenced by his own ideas as well as those of Gauguin and Bernard.Gayford p.72 The paintings were made on Gauguin's jute which with Van Gogh's brushstroke made a finished tapestry-like texture. The high vantage point represented in the work resembled that of Gauguin's '' Vision After the Sermon''. Creating a composition of a landscape viewed through the trunks of trees was something used previously by Bernard. Van Gogh used complementary, contrasting colors to intensify the effect of each color. The blue poplar trunks against the yellow path of leaves. Green is used against red. Violet was paired with an apricot. To his sister, Vincent wrote of the selection and placement of colors "which cause each other to shine brilliantly, which form a couple, which completes each other like man and woman."Gayford pp. 72-4 Van Gogh's imagination created the figures in the paintings. In one, a couple of a thin man with an umbrella is paired with a large woman, much like van Gogh's image of a woman he might settle down with. On the lane is also a red-dressed woman. The other painting holds a couple who walk along the lane between stone sarcophagi, a yellow sunset at their backs.

Van Gogh's other Les Alyscamps paintings

Van Gogh made another pair of paintings at Les Alyscamps. File:Van Gogh - Les Alyscamps, Allee in Arles1.jpeg, ''Les Alyscamps''
1888
Private collection (F569) File:Van Gogh - Les Alyscamps, Allee in Arles3.jpeg, ''Les Alyscamps''
1888
Collection Basil P. and Elise Goulandris, Laussane, Switzerland

Gauguin's paintings

For his painting of ''Les Alyscamps'', painted on the same day as van Gogh's, Gauguin chose a different vantage point, and excluded any reference to ancient sarcophagi. Image:Paul Gauguin 085.jpg,

, ''Les Alyscamps''
1888
Musée d'Orsay, Paris Image:Lane at Alchamps, Arles 1888 Paul Gauguin.jpg,

, ''Allée des Alyscamps''
1888
Seiji Togo Memorial Sompo Japan Museum of Art, Tokyo

References

Bibliography

* * Naifeh, Steven; Smith, Gregory White. Van Gogh:
The Life
'. Profile Books, 2011.

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Falling Autumn Leaves Paintings of Arles by Vincent van Gogh 1888 paintings Paintings by Vincent van Gogh Collections of the Kröller-Müller Museum it:Les Alyscamps pl:Les Alyscamps