Van Gogh’s lime tree

6 February 2020

Van Gogh’s lime tree

Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 2 February, 2019, oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

The lemon and the lime trees are both in flower again. A sweet aroma wafts through the house with the slightest breeze. Nice, because my evenings at the beach are also fruitful.  

Three studies from last week. This was the first, and it's icky, yellow-green sky reminds me of the garish light in the painting of the bar in Arles which Van Gogh painted at night. He loved yellow perhaps more than any other color even long before he arrived in the blazing sunlight of Provence. Although there are hundreds of examples of the warm golden glow he employed out of doors in this bright southern landscape, there are also a few paintings wherein he pushed into the cold green side of the colour wheel like in his famous “Cafe Terrace at Night”. The warm friendly yellow he used outdoors under the magnanimous sun was in sharp contrast to this acid yellow-green he used indoors at night from gas-lit lamps. 

Gas lamps were used everywhere by the time Van Gogh painted this nocturnal exterior scene of the cafe. Paris was being electrified in the 1870’s but whether or not towns like Arles or Aix-en-Provence had them is hard to say from my small perch here in Australia. Like they say, it’s above my paygrade, and Google still isn’t as clever as she thinks she is about a lot of things. But anyway, it doesn’t matter except to note that any synthetic light affects the colour Yellow to a varying degree. It’s a very fragile colour and easily maimed by all sorts of artificial lights. But it’s even an issue for any painter using this delicate tint whether during daylight or with artificial lightbulbs. 

There are still actually a few lamps around town in London today but it's for nostalgia’s sake. Other cities too, apparently in Poland, also still have lamps for show and even a lamplighter who runs around at sunset to light them.  

They say that gas lamps are a rather white light but its hard to know what they were like in Arles when Vincent painted his pictures of both the interior and exterior of the cafe. In any event Vincent loved his yellow, sometimes often applying it thick and lusciously, like melted butter over toast. I’ve often wondered if it was a colour of redemption for him? Was it a colour that gave him hope in the face of so much earthly defeat during his daily routine?

Regarding this famous nocturnal outdoor version of the cafe, there are many theories that allude to The Last Supper. It’s an idea that’s been around the block for some time now among scholars. It has to do with Vincent’s religious beliefs and their symbolic relationships to his pictures. It’s too involved for me as I’m not an academic but it’s interesting, and why not? It’s been a long while since I’ve read his letters so I don’t remember him mentioning this remarkable idea. 

  

But all this is far cry from the small dune overlooking the Pacific Ocean whence came this small study of the glowing sky done in the natural light of dusk. It was done quickly, in about 15 minutes perhaps and was number two out of three painted that evening before the darkness stopped me. Even before finishing it, I thought to myself; “Oh my! this lurid colour reminds me of Vincent’s cafe pictures”!