Arles, 1888

The record dates Red Vineyards at Arles to 1888, and the title names the town outright — one of twenty-nine works in this catalogue that do so, twenty-five of them dated 1888.

What the record gives

The canvas measures 73 x 91 cm and is held by the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, one of five works in this catalogue recorded in that collection. The measured palette returns yellow and green as the dominant families, notwithstanding the red in the title: the title names what the picture is called, the measurement reports what dominates its surface, and the two are answering different questions.

The worked landscape of the southern years

Vineyards are rare in the record — two works name them, this one and a second dated 1890 — but the wider subject is not. Thirty-one works in this catalogue carry "wheat" in the title, ten of them dated 1888 and ten dated 1889. Cultivated, harvested ground is the constant subject of the last three years, as weaving and peasant heads were the constant of the Nuenen years. A great deal is claimed about this particular painting in popular accounts. What the record supports is this: a canvas of worked vineyards, painted in the Arles year, now in Moscow.