Head of a Woman

In the winter of 1884, in the Dutch village of Nuenen, Van Gogh gave himself a project he called heads of the people. Over a few months he painted around 40 studies of local peasants, always the head and shoulders, always in their working clothes, set against a dark background. This is one of them. The woman is nobody famous, a farm labourer who sat for a few coins, and Van Gogh cared less about her exact likeness than about getting the weathered face and the coarse cap right by lamplight. The paint is thick and earthy, the colours close to mud and shadow. These heads were his training for a larger group scene of peasants at supper, and he treated each face as a small, serious study of an ordinary working life.