L'Allée des Alyscamps (The Avenue of Les Alyscamps)

Vincent van Gogh

Oil on canvas

Kröller-Müller Museum

This painting depicts the Allée des Alyscamps, an ancient Roman necropolis in Arles, France, lined with tall poplar trees ablaze with autumnal golden-yellow foliage and flanked by weathered stone sarcophagi. Small figures stroll along the sun-drenched promenade, their presence dwarfed by the soaring vertical rhythm of the poplars, which frame a narrow corridor of sky above. Van Gogh painted this subject in early November 1888, shortly after Paul Gauguin's arrival in Arles, as part of a shared artistic experiment in which both painters set up their easels at the same site to compare their approaches. The work exemplifies Van Gogh's Post-Impressionist mastery of expressive colour and energetic brushwork, capturing the transient beauty of autumn with an intensity that places it among the most celebrated paintings of his Arles period.