{"id":191865,"date":"2026-08-14T16:26:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T14:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svetslik.si\/?post_type=product&p=191865"},"modified":"2026-08-15T08:43:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T06:43:40","slug":"les-alyscamps","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/svetslik.si\/en\/paul-gauguin\/les-alyscamps\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Gauguin \u2013 Les Alyscamps"},"content":{"rendered":"

Les Alyscamps \u2013 the ironic second title the painter gave it<\/h2>\n

The upright canvas is divided by a diagonal. On the right a massive dark green tree rises, and beside it the poplars burn orange and yellow all the way to the top edge. On the left a blue sky opens with a pale vertical trail, and below it, among the trees, stands a building with a dome. Water runs through the lower half between green and ochre banks. On the path at the centre of the canvas stand three figures in dark clothes and white headdresses. At the lower right a red bush blazes. The work is held by the Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Orsay in Paris under inventory number RF 1938 47; it was made in 1888 at Arles.<\/p>\n

The Three Graces at the Temple of Venus<\/h3>\n

The French national record gives two titles at once for this picture: Les Alyscamps, and then Les trois Gr\u00e2ces au temple de V\u00e9nus, that is, The Three Graces at the Temple of Venus, with the explicit note that this is an ironic title given to the work by the artist himself. The joke is plain as soon as you look at the painting: the three figures on the path are not ancient goddesses but three townswomen in dark clothes, and the temple is a Christian chapel with a round dome. The same record names the building Saint-Honorat and the water the Craponne canal.<\/p>\n

What the painter saw at Arles<\/h3>\n

The Alyscamps is an ancient burial ground on the edge of Arles, along which another painter also walked in the autumn of 1888. The museum record notes beside our work that a second version by Gauguin exists in landscape format, and that the same subject was painted four times by Vincent van Gogh. Our reproduction follows the upright Orsay version \u2013 the one, that is, that the painter himself supplied with a mocking title.<\/p>\n

The signature in the lower left corner<\/h3>\n

The museum record states that this work is signed and dated, and gives the inscription as P. GAUGUIN 88 in the lower left corner. On the painting it is indeed visible: a thin dark stroke across the pale path, with the year immediately after the name. In the hand-painted copy we paint it as we paint everything else, with the brush, not printed.<\/p>\n

How a hand-painted reproduction is made<\/h3>\n

Every reproduction here is hand-painted in oil on canvas, stroke by stroke. In this motif the relation between the burning poplar and the dark tree beside it is decisive: if the orange goes too quiet, the whole right half of the canvas falls apart. Before dispatch you receive a photograph of the finished work for approval.<\/p>\n