Entrance to the Public Garden in Arles 1888

Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Entrance to the Public Garden in Arles’ is a landscape painting dominated by textured brushstrokes and a vibrant palette of greens and yellows, creating an atmosphere of lively movement and light. Notice how van Gogh disrupts conventional perspective, drawing our eye into the scene through rhythmic lines and contrasting shades. The semiotic structure here functions as a visual code, where nature is not merely represented but re-imagined. His use of impasto transforms the canvas into a dynamic field of color, effectively dismantling traditional modes of representation. The figures in the garden are rendered with minimal detail, almost dissolving into the surrounding foliage. This challenges the fixed categories of figure and ground, suggesting an underlying structure where all elements are interconnected. The painting becomes a site for destabilizing established meanings, inviting us to reconsider our relationship with the natural world.