Langlois Bridge at Arles

Van Gogh was 35 when he made the Langlois Bridge paintings and drawings. Living in Arles, in southern France, he was at the height of his career, producing some of his best work:[1] sunflowers, fields, farmhouses and people of the Arles, Nîmes and Avignon areas.[2] It was a prolific time for Van Gogh: in less than 15 months[3] he made about 100 drawings, produced more than 200 paintings and wrote more than 200 letters.[4]

The canals, drawbridges, windmills, thatched cottages and expansive fields of the Arles countryside reminded Van Gogh of his life in the Netherlands. Arles brought him the solace and bright sun that he sought for himself and conditions to explore painting with more vivid colors, intense color contrasts and varied brushstrokes. He also returned to the roots of his artistic training from the Netherlands, most notably with the use of a reed pen for his drawings.[5]

The original drawbridge, 1902. It was replaced by a reinforced-concrete bridge in 1930. At Van Gogh's time, it was called Pont de Langlois, Langlois' bridge, after its bridge keeper. The bridge has been relocated and renamed Pont Van-Gogh

The Langlois Bridge was one of the crossings over the Arles to Bouc canal.[6] The double-beam drawbridge was built in the first half of the 19th century to expand the network of canals to the Mediterranean Sea. Locks and bridges were built, too, to manage water and road traffic. Just outside Arles, the first bridge was the officially titled "Pont de Réginel" but better known by the keeper's name as "Pont de Langlois".[7][8] In 1930, the original drawbridge was replaced by a reinforced concrete structure which, in 1944, was blown up by the retreating Germans who destroyed all the other bridges along the canal except for the one at Fos-sur-Mer, a port on the Mediterranean Sea. The Fos Bridge was dismantled in 1959 with a view to relocating it on the site of the Langlois Bridge but as a result of structural difficulties, it was finally reassembled at Montcalde Lock several kilometers away from the original site.[9][10]

According to letters to his brother Theo, Van Gogh began a study of women washing clothes near the Langlois Bridge about mid-March 1888[11] and was working on another painting of the bridge about 2 April.[12] This was the first of several versions he painted of the Langlois Bridge that crossed the Arles canal.[8]

Reflecting on Van Gogh's works of the Langlois Bridge Debora Silverman, author of the book Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Search for Sacred Art comments, "Van Gogh's depictions of the bridge have been considered a quaint exercise in nostalgia mingled with Japonist allusions." Van Gogh approached the making of the paintings and drawings about the bridge in a "serious and sustained manner" with attention to "the structure, function, and component parts of this craft mechanism in the landscape."[13]

In Arles Van Gogh began using again a perspective frame he had built in The Hague. The device was used for outdoor sightings to compare the proportion of items that were near to those that were in the distance. Some of the works of the Langlois Bridge were made with the aid of the frame. Its use "deepened his exploration of the drawbridge as a mechanism."[14]

The Langlois Bridge reminded Van Gogh of Hiroshige's print Sudden Shower on the Great Bridge.[15] Inspired by the Japanese wood block prints, Van Gogh sought to integrate techniques from Japanese artwork into his own. In a letter to Émile Bernard about the Langlois Bridge, he wrote: "If the Japanese are not making any progress in their own country, still it cannot be doubted that their art is being continued in France." With a Japanese aesthetic, Van Gogh's Langlois Bridge paintings reflect a simplified use of color to create a harmonious and unified image. Outlines were used to suggest movement. He used fewer shades of colors, preferring multiple subtle color variations. The Langlois Bridge reminded Van Gogh of Hiroshige's Sudden Shower on the Great Bridge inspiring him to use blocks of colors, like patterns of yellow against a blue sky, colors chosen to create a sense of vitality[15] of the Japanese prints and the vibrant quality of light in southern France.[16] These approaches created a more powerful impact and depicted the simpler, primitive quality of the country lifestyle.[17]

Van Gogh used varying techniques when he created the painting, depending upon the subject and what he wanted to convey. The grass and the path in the foreground were painted rapidly. The bridge, though, was painted in greater detail,[8][22][23] with clearly defined stone piers and wooden beams. The detail in the ropes used to lift the roadway show that they are attached to the wooden lifting gear. Van Gogh also pays close attention to the reflection of the bridge in the water. In the distance is another drawbridge.[8]

Van Gogh claimed the painting as "something funny... I will not create every day."[8][24] There was something about the setting for this painting that reminded him of his homeland.[2][25] He asked his brother Theo to frame an earlier version of the painting in blue and gold (blue in the front, gold on the side) and offer it to an art-dealer in the Netherlands,[8] named Tersteeg.[12][26] Tersteeg knew Van Gogh and his brother Theo when they lived in The Hague. He nurtured Van Gogh's early artistic interests but their relationship suffered after Van Gogh lived with a prostitute named Sien.[27]

The Van Gogh Museum claims that the painting is the last in a series of three,[8] yet Silverman has identified four oil paintings and a fifth watercolor, as outlined in this article.[13]

Wallraf-Richartz Museum's Langlois Bridge at Arles depicts a woman holding an umbrella as she crosses the Langlois Bridge, following a horse and buggy that just crossed the bridge. The water in the canal subtly reflects the bridge and the few clouds in the sky. Van Gogh uses impasto paint and color to reflect light, much as we would see it in with our eye. Two tall cypress trees and a white house flank the drawbridge which has a moveable center section between stone abutments.[28] The painting is currently at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, Germany.[29]

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  The Langlois Bridge at Arles with Road alongside the Canal, 1888, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (F400)
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  The Langlois Bridge at Arles, 1888, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne (F570)