Vincent van Gogh artwork entitled Memory of the Garden at Etten (Ladies of Arles) Vibrant garden scene with a lady tending a flower border.
While living in the Yellow House with Paul Gauguin, van Gogh produced several works. Many of these were either influenced in some way by Gauguin or have a Gauguin painting twin. For Memory of the Garden at Etten (Ladies of Arles), Gauguin encouraged his pal to paint from memory, hence the title. Gauguin’s painting Arlésiennes was either painted at the same time or as a response. Van Gogh’s summer in Etten held a lot of memories beyond his impression of the gardens, specifically the woman who usually sat beside him while he painted landscapes. Her name was Kee, a widow and a cousin of van Gogh. She and her young son would join him while he worked and van Gogh fell hard for her. She didn’t feel the same, which is putting it mildly. He tried to kiss her and she definitively told him “Never, no, never.” But heartbroken Van Gogh was passionate, a tad obsessive, and really stubborn. He wrote her several love letters and his unrequited affection for her became both a family scandal and an embarrassment. Van Gogh begged his brother Theo for the funds to go visit her and, though he didn’t encourage his pursuit, he gave him the money, likely hoping it would help him find closure and move on. But Van Gogh never saw Kee again. He went to the home she was staying at several times and was told each time that she was not there. Her clear and continued avoidance was too blatant to ignore, and van Gogh did give up and move on. Van Gogh wrote to his sister Willemina of Memory of the Garden at Etten (Ladies of Arles) saying, “Let’s suppose that these two women walking are you and our mother.” So, almost certainly the two figures depicted were meant to only portray his mother and sister. Though he discussed the bright colors of the women’s shawls as being the aspect most representative of his mother, rather than the physical appearance. But, his biographer Marc Edo Tralbaut argued that, at least subconsciously, one of the figures represents Kee - Danielle DeVeaux
Size: 6453px × 4960px
Location: Arles, France.
Photo credit: © steeve-x-art / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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