Lesson 2 Art and the City
Arles, the City of Light and Art
____ artists are so closely linked with particular places that it is hard to separate them.
Arles and Van ____ are like that.
Arles is located five hours southeast of Paris and is well known for its magical ____ and colorful landscape.
The most famous resident of this town was ____ van Gogh.
Leaving behind the gray ____ of Paris, he arrived in Arles in 1888.
The town inspired an ____ of creativity.
Vincent claimed, “The ____ future of art is to be found in the south of France.”
He worked enthusiastically and produced nearly 200 ____ in just fifteen months.
None of Vincent’s works are left in Arles now, but today you can see a number of them have been ____ in street-side panels.
Let’s follow Vincent’s traces that remain in ____.
The Roman Arena
Arles is an ____ city dating back to Roman times.
Many Roman buildings remain, ____ an arena that was built in 90 A.D.
The arena used to seat over 20,000 people who would go to watch ____ entertaining events.
Vincent sometimes went to the bullfights that were held in the arena every ____.
He particularly liked to watch the ____ crowds.
He told a friend that he found the crowds ____.
They inspired the painting Arena at ____.
The arena is in the ____ right corner of the painting and is barely visible.
Below, ____ is a faint image of two bulls.
However, Vincent paid lots of ____ to the people and their colorful clothes.
Some of the people are chatting with friends, others are cheering on the bulls, and the entire painting has a powerful ____.
Café van Gogh
Vincent painted the world-famous Café ____ at Night in September 1888.
He created this ____ while sitting outside the Café van Gogh at night.
This was unusual ____ most painters did their night scenes from memory and worked during the daytime.
As such, they used a ____ of black paint.
Vincent, however, believed that night scenes contained ____ and vibrant colors.
Indeed, the Café Terrace at Night has such a rich harmony of yellows, blues, and ____ that Vincent did not have to use a single drop of black paint.
Even ____, there is still a café at the site of Vincent’s painting.
It was renovated in the 1990s and painted yellow to ____ like the café in the painting.
____, it is uncertain whether the color of the original café was yellow or not.
The ____ is that Vincent painted the wall of the café yellow to show the lamp light.
Former Arles Hospital
In December 1888, Vincent suffered ____ a mental illness and was sent to the hospital in Arles.
He ____ there for five months.
During this time, his mental stability improved, and the doctors ____ him to paint outdoors.
Vincent took advantage of this freedom and produced several beautiful landscapes, such as The Garden of the Hospital in ____.
The picture illustrates a ____ garden filled with flowers and trees with different colors and tones.
The ____ are in full bloom, and the small trees are leafy.
The big trees, however, ____ few leaves.
This is ____ odd given that the season is spring.
Perhaps this contrast reflects the painter’s complex feelings during the most difficult ____ of his life.
The hospital closed in the 1980s, and the building reopened as a ____ and exhibition space, with a café and gift shops.
The garden was renovated to resemble Vincent’s painting as ____ as possible.
Arles and ____ provincial countryside inspired Vincent to create brighter, more exciting landscapes.
He had ____ for brighter colors and softer light in Paris.
In ____, he found them.
Today, more than 200 years later, this beautiful city remains just as ____.
The ____ of Roman historic sites and Vincent’s story creates a unique mood that will inspire you just as the city had inspired Vincent.