Monet remains a reference. Young artists express the beauty of a little detail of nature, simply. Moving away from the traditional landscape and still life, they open the path to abstract expressionism. Returning to England after a visit to Giverny, Sargent painted in 1886 a humble embankment of poppies with brilliant colors.
Vincent van Gogh is in Paris in 1886. He admits that until then he had no knowledge of current art. He had admired Millet, Daubigny and Mesdag. He integrates his discovery of Impressionnisme with dazzling energy but, always in quest for a personal and perfect art, he does not imitate them.
In 1886 Vincent painted many views of Paris. In the following year he worked beside Signac on views of the Parc Voyer d'Argenson overlooking the Seine at Asnières.
In his 1889 and 1890 pictures in Provence and Auvers, the influence of Signac on Vincent remains important : the overall effect of a painting is brought by tiny elements of bright colors. For the detail of this texture, Vincent will rather retain the long brush strokes intertwined in the white snows of Monet.
On November 11 in New York, Christie's sells as lot 40 A Coin de jardin avec papillons, oil on canvas 50 x 61 cm painted by Vincent. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Its painstaking realization suggested that it was painted in Arles in the spring of 1889. New analyzes lead experts from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam to propose an execution in the spring of 1887. If so, Vincent had experienced in the Asnières garden a style that he will use more regularly two years later. In his bulimic zeal to master the art of painting in its entirety, this hypothesis is also plausible.
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