A Selection of Jigsaws to Van Gogh Paintings 14

Seeing the Harvest at La Crau at the meeting made me want to add this one of mine (Top L) to the album (indeed I had almost chosen to do it for the meeting). The jigsaw is a Jeux Artistiques, c1000pc - it was renovated lovingly by Anobethio and now has 12 replacements. I don't normally like jigsaws to have a white border but the cutter(s) here always seem to leave them on, displaying their fantastic cutting to great advantage and creating a difficult element to assemble. Van Gogh painted, Peach Trees in Blossom, La Crau in April 1889, and it is owned by the Courtauld Gallery, London.
For more information, and an extract from Vincent's letter to Paul Signac about the Crau see this site:
art-vangogh.com/arles_178.html
" ‘everything is small there ... even the mountains, as in certain Japanese landscapes, which is the reason why the subject attracted me.’ The snow-capped peak on the right (a deliberate echo of Mount Fuji in Japan) and blossoming trees create a peaceful atmosphere. But the bent figure at left emphasises this is a man-made landscape."

Lower L: This vintage 1000pc Puzzle Michele Wilson jigsaw also once belonged to Anobethio, and has very attractive cutting, varying in character across the painting, although unfortunately the backs of the pieces were unevenly worn. The painting is Gypsy Caravans near Arles, 1888 and it is at the Musee D'Orsay in Paris.

nga.gov.au/exhibition/masterpiecesfromparis/default.cfm?I...

"Early in his time at Arles, probably at the end of May 1888, van Gogh took a trip to Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a coastal village in the Camargue. In the nineteenth century this area was still a sterile salty plain of lagoons and marshes, populated by flamingos, wild bulls and white horses. Saintes-Maries was also the site of annual pilgrimages for many Romany who came to worship the relics of the Marys. The outing proved inspiring and van Gogh returned with three canvases—the glorious View of Saintes-Maries, as well as two seascapes—and a dozen drawings which he later worked up into paintings. Caravans probably dates from August 1888, after his return to Arles: in a letter of mid August van Gogh refers to ‘a little study of a roadside inn, with red and green carts’.
In Caravans, gypsy camp near Arles, van Gogh alternates between thick impasto in the foreground and areas of the sky, and the sparse mid-section where the canvas shows through. In this and other paintings from the period, he worked rapidly, executing a ‘succession of studies with quick yet coherent brushstrokes’.4 Here we sense the artist’s intense feeling at a unique moment, and at a specific site: nothing breaks the horizon except a windmill, itself the merest suggestion of a distant structure. The frieze of figures, vehicles and horses, also rendered with minimal means, seems designed to emphasise the flatness of the landscape. Only the tree at right and the scrubby vegetation at left offer refuge from the sun. The empty foreground adds to the feeling of harsh desolation, a suggestion, perhaps, of the peripheral position of gypsy people."

The other three Van Gogh laser-cut 250pc jigsaws by Wentworth all use the same cut with a wavy top and wildlife whimsy set. (I have a Paula Nightingale painting with this same cut).
Lower centre: Pot Luck (ie unknown image, no title or guide) Gypsy Encampment, 1888
Top R: Pot Luck - Park in Spring at Asnieres, 1887 - the painting is in a private collection in Malaysia.
Mid & Lower R: Pot Luck - Reaping at La Crau, Provence - a less colourful version of the painting in the photo before.

Taken on: April 12, 2020

Sets appears in: • BCD 2020 House Party • Vintage 2 Wooden Jigsaws

Groups appears in: • Jigsaws • Artistic Puzzles more » • Traditional Wooden Jigsaws • BCD Just Jigsaws « less

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