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Mural with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon is one of the bottom recognized landscapes from Vincent van Gogh'south Saint-R�my period. Although rarely exhibited outside its habitation in Sao Paulo, Brazil, this painting nevertheless presents some interesting aspects for the viewer--both compositional and thematic.

Colours and composition

Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon is an intriguing composite of common themes establish in works throughout Van Gogh's career, but at the same time some specific characteristics fix it bated from other paintings.

Olive trees and cypresses are often portrayed in paintings from Van Gogh'south Saint-R�my period. Just the trees in Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon are less imposing and less intricately detailed. Van Gogh's cypresses are famous, but those seen in the current work announced in the distance almost as an reconsideration, lacking the majesty and turbulence that and then ofttimes characterize Van Gogh'south cypress trees. The olive copse, too, announced small and brush-like, defective in the stately olive orchards constitute in paintings such as Olive Grove. The "toned downwards" quality of the trees is likely intentional, however, then every bit not to divert attention from the couple in the foreground.

The painting is unusual, too, in that information technology depicts twilight. The vast bulk of Van Gogh's Arles and Saint-R�my works are set in daylight under the scorching Proven�al sun. Twilight landscapes were more than mutual in the early years of Van Gogh's career (see Fall Landscape at Sunset, from the Nuenen period, for example), but in afterwards years Van Gogh abandoned twilight scenes for the most part. Without question, Van Gogh took wonderful stylistic license with his skies--blazing crescent moons shimmering in broad daylight (see Tabular array 1 below), but the straightforward depiction of dawn and dusk was rare in the last years of Van Gogh's career.

Unusual, too, is the most square size of the canvas of Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon. With a few notable exceptions (Van Gogh's "double square" mural paintings from his Auvers flow, for example), Van Gogh executed works in a standard portrait or landscape format--regardless of the size of canvass used. In his Paris menstruation Van Gogh experimented with some mannerly oval works (Handbasket of Sprouting Bulbs, for example), but for the most part he preferred a standard rectangular format. The current work is notable for its uncharacteristically square ratio.

Contradictions

In addition to some of the intriguing stylistic nuances of Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon, there are besides some contradictions in terms of the painting'due south groundwork which warrant attending.

The dating, for instance. Most references place the work late in Van Gogh'south Saint-R�my period, merely every bit Ronald Pickvance points out, there are suggestions that the work may, in fact, have been executed several months earlier in October, 1889.ⁱ

Another contradiction arises with regards to whether Van Gogh ever mentioned Mural with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon in his letters. Pickvance maintains that the painting is never once mentioned in whatsoever of Van Gogh's surviving letters² and yet one of the earth's foremost authorities on the letters, January Hulsker, states that the work is mentioned in two of Van Gogh's letters: 644 and W1³. Surprisingly, Hulsker appears to exist mistaken. Letter 644 describes several paintings Van Gogh was working on, but the description that matches the current work the nigh closely would seem to be "a cypress with a star" and still this is almost certainly Road with Cypress and Star and not Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon. In Letter W1 Van Gogh writes to his sister Wil of "the orchards of olive trees . . . with their very different skies of yellow, pink and blue colours" and yet the colours described are completely different than the greens and oranges of the electric current work.

Familiar motifs

As mentioned, the olive and cypress copse seen in Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon were a common theme throughout Van Gogh's years in the south of France. Other motifs in this painting also accept their precedents.

• The faces: During his career Vincent van Gogh painted thirty-six cocky-portraits. Occasionally, withal, in other works he may accept taken a far more subtle approach by overlaying his image on a figure within the painting. The homo in the walking couple clearly has cherry hair and beard and is wearing a blueish shirt (clothing which Vincent often favoured in some of his more famous self-portraits such as Self-Portrait with Straw Hat). It'south non unreasonable to propose that Vincent chose to place himself within the mural, but it is notable that he as well gave himself a companion. For much of his life, Vincent van Gogh sought, usually in vain, contentment through female companionship. Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon was painted while Van Gogh was voluntarily confined in the mental asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-R�my. When he painted this work Van Gogh had been a patient for twelve months (if we accept the May, 1890 dating) and had suffered ongoing isolation and despair. Hither, the faceless red-headed man tromps through the fields with a female companion. Possibly Van Gogh is embellishing his landscape with an arcadian scenario that he was denied in the harsh reality of the aviary. This stands in precipitous contrast another more than anguished, but sadly more realistic, subliminal self-portrait from the same flow: Prisoners Exercising.

  Although Prisoners Exercising is, in fact, a painted re-create of an earlier drawing by Gustave Dor�, its subject matter was a poignantly plumbing equipment one for Van Gogh during his confinement in the Saint-R�my mental aviary. The prisoners (or to use the coordinating exchange: the patients) are marched in a minor compound within the claustrophobic prison walls. The prisoners shuffle within the circle--moving merely non advancing--and, with the exception of i man, are faceless. The figure in the foreground stares directly at the viewer--perhaps not defiantly, but certainly with a gaze that suggests an unbroken individuality. Information technology'south frequently been suggested that this lone prisoner is, in fact, Van Gogh himself looking at viewer from inside his own brushstrokes. An intriguing proffer and, as mentioned, 1 that stands in contrast to the freedom and happy intimacy of Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon.

  

• The gestures: The sweeping movement of the adult female in Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon is likewise noteworthy in that the sheer exaggerated animation of the gesture make it most unusual inside Van Gogh'south works.

  The gesture is reminiscent of that seen in The Raising of Lazarus. Both paintings were produced in precisely the same period and it's possible that Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon harbours a subtle, religious undercurrent (non an unreasonable interpretation, given that such undercurrents were common in Van Gogh'southward works--specially those executed near the end of his long confinement in the Saint-R�my asylum). Van Gogh's religious beliefs had been in a land of turbulent flux for years, but there's no question that he always harboured a deep reverence and spiritual respect for nature. Here, a female figure demonstrates the aforementioned arguably religious fervour seen in The Raising of Lazarus--just in this detail case within the sweeping Proven�al fields.

• The crescent moon motif: Finally one of Vincent van Gogh's most easily recognized motifs is the crescent moon.

  The crescent moon can exist found in four of Van Gogh's paintings (besides as various other drawings and alphabetic character sketches) and stands out as a radiant gem shining in Van Gogh'south famous dark skies.

  Table i: Crescent Moon Motif

  Title	F	JH	Location	Thumbnail
  Cypresses	613	1746	New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art
  Mural with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon	704	1981	Sao Paulo: Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo
  Road with Cypress and Star	683	1982	Otterlo: Kr�ller-M�ller Museum
  Starry Night	612	1731	New York: Museum of Modern Art

Determination

While it's unfair (to say nothing of crudely anthropomorphic) to propose that Landscape with Couple Walking and Crescent Moon has been upstaged by its other more famous "brothers" from the aforementioned period, it is truthful that it remains unduly unappreciated. One could argue that the painting lacks the technical depth of, say, Road with Cypress and Star, but the work truly stands on its ain as a remarkable achievement. The commentary above demonstrates stylistic links to the other, more acclaimed paintings, but the unique combination of motif, color and composition culminate in a rich and brilliantly executed piece of work.

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Footnotes

1. Ronald Pickvance, Van Gogh in Saint-R�my and Auvers (Harry North. Abrams, Inc., 1986), p. 54.
2. Ibid.
3. Jan Hulsker, Vincent van Gogh: A Guide to His Works and Letters (Waanders, 1993), p. 42.

Possessor	City	Country	Appointment acquired
Johanna van Gogh-Bonger	Amsterdam	Netherlands
C.Grand. van Gogh (J.H. de Bois)	Amsterdam	Netherlands
A.Thou. Kr�ller	The Hague	Netherlands	1910
P.R. Bruckmann	The Hague	Netherlands	1910
Huinck and Scherjon Fine art Gallery	Amsterdam	Netherlands
Kr�ller-Grand�ller Museum	Otterlo	Netherlands	4 February 1943
D'Audretsch Fine art Gallery	The Hague	Netherlands	four April 1946
M. Frank Art Gallery	New York	Us
Wildenstein Fine art Gallery	New York	United States
Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo	Sao Paulo	Brazil

Exhibitions

Yr	Urban center	State	Venue	Exhibition Name	Start Date	Cease Engagement	No.
1953-54	Paris	France	Mus�e de l'Orangerie	Chefs-d'oeuvre du Mus�e d'Art de Sao Paulo			63
1954	Utrecht	Netherlands	Centraal Museum	Meesterwerken uit Sao Paulo	vi March 1954	2 May 1954	54
1955	New York (2)	United States	Wildenstein and Co.	Vincent van Gogh Loan Exhibition	24 March 1955	30 April 1955	56
1986-87	New York	United States	Metropolitan Museum of Fine art	Van Gogh in Saint-R�my and Auvers	12 November 1986	22 March 1987	54
1987	Verona	Italy	Palazzo Forti	Da Monet a Toulouse-Lautrec: Paintings from the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo (MASP)	4 July 1987	27 September 1987
1987	Monza	Italian republic	Serrone della Villa Reale	Da Monet a Toulouse-Lautrec: Paintings from the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo (MASP)	7 October 1987	six December 1987
1987-88	Genoa	Italy	Villa Croce	Da Monet a Toulouse-Lautrec: Paintings from the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo (MASP)	17 Dec 1987	21 February 1988
2002	Sapporo	Japan	Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art	Vincent & Theo van Gogh	5 July 2002	25 August 2002	46
2002	Kobe	Japan	Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art	Vincent & Theo van Gogh	7 September 2002	iv November 2002	46
2002-03	Treviso	Italy	Casa dei Carraresi	L'Impressionismo east l'Et� di Van Gogh	9 November 2002	xxx March 2003
2005-06	Brescia	Italian republic	Museo di Santa Giulia	Gauguin-Van Gogh: The Adventure of the New Colour	22 October 2005	26 March 2006	114

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Source: http://www.vggallery.com/painting/p_0704.htm

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