Van Gough arrived in Arles in February 1888 armed with romantic preconceptions: to him the south was an unpolluted haven, a place of pure, clear colors and translucent light.
He chose a place for his easel where he could paint the patch of land with the road in the foreground as a large diagonal leading into the left background.
The painting is one of a series of views of the Langlois Bridge at Arles that Van Gough painted between mid-March and mid-May of 1888.
Langlois Bridge at Arles by Vincent van Gogh
