Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)
Route aux confins de Paris, avec paysan portant la b?che sur l'épaule
oil on canvas
181Ü2 x 281Ü4 in. (47 x 71.7 cm.)
Painted in summer, 1887
Provenance

Mrs. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Amsterdam (1905).
J.H. de Bois, The Hague (acquired from the above, March 1912).
Moderne Galerie (Heinrich Thannhauser), Munich (acquired from the above).
Mrs. C. Jordan, Wetter an der Ruhr, Germany (1930).
M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York.
Mrs. J. Lee Johnson, Fort Worth (1949).
Karen Carter Johnson, San Antonio (by descent from the above, 1964 and until at least 1985).
Acquired by the present owner, 1989.
Literature

J.-B. de la Faille, The Works of Vincent van Gogh: His Paintings and Drawings, Amsterdam, 1970, pp. 169 and 265, no. F 361 (illustrated). J. Hulsker, The Complete Van Gogh: Paintings, Drawings, Sketches, Amsterdam, 1977, p. 281, no. 1260 (illustrated).
J. Rewald, Post-Impressionism: From van Gogh to Gauguin, New York, 1986, p. 54 (illustrated).
R. Pickvance, "Paris, Musee d'Orsay: Van Gogh à Paris," in The Burlington Magazine, 1988, vol. 130, p. 312 (illustrated, fig. 63).
W. Feilchenfeldt, Vincent van Gogh & Paul Cassirer, Berlin: The Reception of Van Gogh in Germany from 1901 to 1914, Amsterdam, 1988, p. 90, no. F 361 (illustrated).
I.F. Walther and R. Metzger, Vincent van Gogh: The Complete Paintings, Etten, April 1881-Paris, February 1888, Cologne, 1993, p. 248 (illustrated in color).
J. Hulsker, The New Complete Van Gogh: Paintings, Drawings, Sketches, Amsterdam, 1996, p. 280, no. 1260 (illustrated, p. 281).
M. Ferretti-Bocquillon, A. Distel, J. Leighton and S.A. Stein, Signac: 1863-1935, exh. cat., Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Pairs; Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2001, p. 113 (illustrated, p. 116).
Exhibited

Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Vincent van Gogh, July-August 1905, no. 83 (titled Avenue te Asni?res).
Rotterdam, Kunstzalen Oldenzeel, Vincent van Gogh, January-February 1906, no. 26.
Munich, Moderne Kunsthandlung, Van Gogh/Gauguin, April 1908, no. 20 (titled Avenue in Asni?res).
Dresden, Emil Richter, Vincent van Gogh/Paul Cézanne, April-May 1908, no. 20 (titled Avenue in Asni?res).
Frankfurt, Kunstverein, Vincent van Gogh, June 1908, no. 22 (titled Avenue in Asni?res).
Zurich, KZnstlerhaus, Van Gogh/Amiet/Emmenegger/Giovanni Giacometti, July 1908, no. 15 (titled Avenue in Asni?res).
Berlin, Paul Cassirer, October 1908, no. 22 (titled Avenue te Asni?res 'blijft thuis').
Munich, Brakl; Frankfurt, Kunstverein; Dresden, Arnold and Chemnitz, Kunstsalon Gerstenberger, Vincent van Gogh, October 1909-April 1910, no. 15 (titled Avenue Asni?res 83 'tres fin pointille').
Munich, Moderne Galerie, 1913.
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Vincent van Gogh en Zijn tijdgenooten, September-November 1930, no. 32.
Fort Worth Art Center, May 1962.
New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Vincent van Gogh and Expressionism, July-September 1964.
New York, Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, Important European Paintings from Texas Private Collections, November-December 1964, no. 17.
The San Antonio Art Museum, San Antonio Collects, February-March 1985.
Paris, Musée d'Orsay, Van Gogh à Paris, February-May 1988, p. 130, no. 46 (illustrated in color, p. 131).
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Vincent van Gogh, March-July 1990, p. 78, no. 23 (illustrated in color, p. 79).
Martigny, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Van Gogh, June-November 2000, pp. 267 and 297, no. 40 (illustrated in color, p. 197; titled Route aux confins de Paris).
Lot Notes

The two years that Van Gogh spent in Paris, from March 1886 until February 1888, represent a pivotal period in his career, during which he assimilated a host of diverse artistic currents and forged an inimitable personal style. George Shackelford has proclaimed, "During this two-year residence in Paris, he was to transform himself and his art, emerging from the self-imposed gloom of his Netherlandish manner into the full sunlight of his modern French style and changing himself from an unsure and untutored painter of peasant life into a radical member of the avant-garde" (in Van Gogh Face to Face: The Portraits, exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts, 2000, p. 87).

Likewise, Richard Kendall has written, "Between the winter of 1886 and the spring of 1887, Van Gogh effectively crossed the divide into contemporary art; the inky tones and rustic themes of Nuenen were set aside and his belief in the salutary teaching of the academic regime abandoned. In their place, a fresh and dazzling gamut of painterly possibilities opened up, from the still half-absorbed lessons of the senior Impressionists to the even more radical practices of the next generation By the early summer of 1887, he had mastered in his own distinctive way many of the idioms of his avant-garde friends, alternating between them in a sometimes disconcerting manner and expressing a pictorial curiosity--even a kind of playfulness--that contrasts sharply with his former gravity" (in Van Gogh's Van Goghs: Masterpieces from the Van Gogh Museum, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998, pp. 57 and 67).

The present canvas dates to the summer of 1887, at the height of this period of experimental zeal. It is part of an important series of landscapes that Van Gogh painted on the periphery of Paris, including both the semi-rural region on the north slopes of Montmartre (fig. 1) and the nearby suburban enclaves of Asni?res, Gennevilliers, Clichy, and Saint-Ouen (fig. 2). This particular view depicts a farm laborer with a spade walking along a broad lane, the precise location of which has not been determined. The city itself is visible at the far end of the lane, suggesting that Van Gogh was looking back from the countryside, where his real sympathies lay, toward the urban center. Van Gogh's interest in outdoor painting during this period likely reflects his exposure to the work of the Impressionists. In 1886, just a few months after his arrival in Paris, he wrote to his old friend Horace Livens, "In Antwerp I did not even know what the Impressionists were, now I have seen them and though not being one of the club yet I have much admired certain Impressionists' pictures[e.g.] Claude Monet landscape" (LT459a; quoted in J. Hulsker, op. cit., 1996, p. 236). Moreover, he encouraged the reclusive young painter Emile Bernard to work more often en plein air, explaining, "In the studios one not only does not learn much about painting, but not even much good about the art of living" (B1; quoted in exh. cat., op. cit., Washington, D.C., 1998, p. 70).

Close examination of the present canvas has revealed that the man with a spade was originally accompanied by a female figure, whose form is still faintly visible at his right (see R. Pickvance, op. cit., p. 312). This suggests that Van Gogh may initially have intended the painting as a depiction of lovers courting in a landscape, a theme that he treated more explicitly in another canvas from the same period, Le parc Voyer d'Argenson à Asni?res (de la Faille, no. 314; fig. 2). One of Van Gogh's largest paintings from the spring and summer of 1887, the view of the Voyer d'Argenson Park represents a modern variation on Watteau's f?tes galantes, which Van Gogh would have known from visits to the Louvre and from the Goncourt brothers' lyrical descriptions. This quintessentially Rococo theme was revived by Adolphe Monticelli, an artist whom Van Gogh mentioned no fewer than fifty times in his surviving corpus of letters. Van Gogh's images of modern couples wooing in the out-of-doors may also reflect his fervent interest in Naturalist literature. Authors such as Zola, Maupassant, Richepin, and the Goncourts frequently described working-class lovers obliged by cramped domestic quarters to court in public space. Judy Sund has written, "Van Gogh's Paris oeuvre includes many images of couples embracing amid trees and bushes or walking arm in arm in the city's parks or suburbs, and it is likely that the stories of star-crossed lovers that filled his bookshelves fueled his imagination as he dotted landscapes with affectionate pairs" (in True to Temperament: Van Gogh and French Naturalist Literature, Cambridge, 1992, p. 162).

In terms of style, the present painting bears vivid witness to Van Gogh's experimentation in 1887 with the novel pointillist technique of the Neo-Impressionists. Jan Hulsker has described this canvas as a "true pointillist work" (in op. cit., 1996, p. 278), while Ronald Pickvance has written, "Of all Van Gogh's 1887 landscapes, this is the most determinedly pointillist, more so even than the large painting, Le parc Voyer d'Argenson (fig. 2), with which there are certain analogies. It shows the influence of Seurat and Signac, yet remains idiosyncratically a 'Van Gogh'" (in exh. cat., op. cit., Martigny, 2000, p. 297). The Neo-Impressionists made their sensational debut at the Eighth Impressionist Exhibition in May-June 1886, just two months after Van Gogh's arrival in Paris. Although Van Gogh was not attracted to the scientific nature of the method, with its emphasis on color theory, he did embrace the precise, methodical brushstroke favored by Seurat and his circle, which he exploited to heighten the tonal intensity of his work. Although his Neo-Impressionist phase lasted only a year, his esteem for Seurat and Signac endured; in 1888, he wrote to his brother Theo, "As regards pointillé and the like, I consider them to be real discoveries One more reason why in the course of time Seurat's Grande Jatte, the landscapes by Signac done in thick dots, and Anquetin's boat will become even more personal, even more original" (LT528; quoted in J. Hulsker, op. cit., 1996, p. 277).

Although Van Gogh was never close to Seurat, the originator of the pointillist method, he enjoyed a warm camaraderie with Signac, the most active apostle of Neo-Impressionism. The two artists met in early 1887 at the shop of the paint seller Père Tanguy and frequently painted together in the ensuing months at Asni?res and other towns on the outskirts of Paris. As Signac would later recall, "We painted on the banks of the river and ate in a country café, and we returned to Paris on foot, through the streets of Saint-Ouen and Clichy. Van Gogh wore a blue zinc worker's smock and had painted colored smudges on the sleeves He walked along, shouting and gesticulating, waving his freshly painted oversize canvas, smearing paint on himself and the passersby" (quoted in J. Hulsker, op. cit., 1996, p. 282). During the same period, Van Gogh defended Signac's work to Bernard, who made no secret of his contempt for Neo-Impressionism: "If you have already thought Signac and others who use Pointillism quite often do very fine things, instead of slandering them you must respect them and speak sympathetically of them, especially if there has been a quarrel. Otherwise one becomes a sectarian, narrow-minded oneself" (B1; quoted in exh. cat., op. cit., New York, 2001, p. 75). Upon Van Gogh's death, Signac ensured that the Dutch painter's legacy would be remembered, arranging for a retrospective at the Salon des Indépendants in 1891 and offering to organize an exhibition for the Belgian avant-garde group, Les XX: "I am henceforth at your service. At Tanguy's there are close to one hundred canvases of the poor man, nearly all very beautiful. It would be easy to make a choice for Brussels" (quoted in ibid., p. 75).

The influence of Signac is clearly evident in the present painting in the application of pigment in small dots and dashes of pure, unmixed color. Marina Ferretti-Bocquillon has in fact suggested that the painting was indebted to a particular canvas by Signac that Van Gogh would have known: L'embranchement, Bois-Colombes, Opus 130 (Cachin, no. 116; fig. 3; see ibid., p. 113). Dated to the spring of 1886, this painting depicts the railroad junction at the district line of Asni?res and Bois-Colombes. It is one of Signac's very first Neo-Impressionist canvases and the last of three views that the artist made in 1885-1886 of the railway line at Asni?res (see also Cachin, nos. 113-114; Rijksmuseum Vincent Van Gogh, Amsterdam, and Private Collection). The painting was included in the Eighth Impressionist Exhibition in May-June 1886 and the second Salon des Indépendants three months later, and Van Gogh would have seen it on both occasions. The present landscape is closely comparable to L'embranchement in both palette and topography, and may well depict a site near the Bois-Colombes junction as well.

Along with Signac, another key influence in the present canvas is the art of Jean-François Millet, whose depictions of peasants Van Gogh deeply admired throughout his career. As early as 1875, after visiting an exhibition of Millet's drawings, Van Gogh wrote to Theo, "I felt like saying, 'Take off your shoes, for the place where you are standing is Holy Ground'" (LT29; quoted in J. Sund, op. cit., p. 275, note 148). Ten years later, while working on a series of paintings that depict peasants in Nuenen, he referred to Millet as his "guide and counselor" (LT400; quoted in Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South, exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago, 2001, p. 72). Van Gogh's interest in Millet intensified when he visited a large, state-sponsored retrospective of the Realist painter's work in May 1887, almost the exact same moment that the present canvas was painted. At Arles in the summer of 1888, he made a copy after Millet's celebrated canvas, Le semeur (de la Faille, no. 422; Kràller-MZller Museum, Otterlo), and at Saint-Rémy the following year, he painted no fewer than twenty-one oils after rural scenes by Millet.

In the present painting, the figure of the striding laborer is based directly on an 1863 etching by Millet, Le départ pour le travail (see M. Melot, Graphic Art of the Pre-Impressionists, New York, 1978, no. M19). This etching, which shows the man holding a pitchfork rather than a spade over his shoulder, was reproduced in Alfred Sensier's 1881 biography of Millet, which Van Gogh is known to have read soon after it was published. In a letter to Theo dated 1885, Van Gogh in fact cited a line from Sensier's text: "His peasants seem to be painted with the earth they sow" (LT405; quoted in J. Sund, op. cit., p. 94). Van Gogh copied the male figure from Millet's etching in a sketchbook that he used in Nuenen in the winter of 1884-1885 (de la Faille, no. 1882; Rijksmuseum Vincent Van Gogh, Amsterdam), and one of his Saint-Rémy paintings after Millet includes a farmer in nearly the identical pose (de la Faille, no. 684; fig. 4).

The male figure in the present painting may also have been intended as a proxy for the artist himself, whose letters reveal his life-long identification with peasants and laborers. In Nuenen in 1885, Van Gogh associated the arduousness of his own artistic activity with that of the peasant working the soil: "I keep my hand to the plow and cut my furrow steadily" (LT398; quoted in D. Silverman, Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Search for Sacred Art, New York, 2000, p. 79). Three years later, following his move to Arles, he described himself as "looking more or less like a peasant" and as "plowing on my canvases as they do on their fields" (LT612; quoted in ibid., pp. 79 and 82). Van Gogh painted himself on at least seven occasions in the guise of a peasant, clad in a straw hat and a blue smock (de la Faille, nos. 61v, 179v, 294, 365v, 469, 524, 526; fig. 5). Notably, six of these self-portraits date to 1887, the same year as the present canvas; the seventh was painted at Arles in 1888 and is contemporary with a group of portraits that Van Gogh made of the peasant Patience Escalier in comparable garb (de la Faille, nos. 443-444, 1460-1461). Also at Arles, while he was working on a series of harvest scenes (de la Faille, nos. 411, 465, 545, 558-564), Van Gogh painted himself trudging through the deserted countryside, en route to the motif (de la Faille, no. 448; fig. 6). Wearing work clothes and a broad-brimmed hat, his palette and canvases strapped to his back, he closely resembles the farmer in the present painting. As Pickvance has speculated about the latter work, "Could this originally have been a double-portrait of lovers, Vincent himself (carrying easel rather than spade--or even his perspective frame) and his mistress, the owner of Le Tambourin? And did he subsequently attempt to paint her out after their break-up in July 1887? Such haunting autobiographical presences seem remote from the 'pure' Neo-Impressionist landscapes of Seurat and Signac" (in op. cit., p. 312).