Houses Seen from the Back

Van Gogh left the Brabant countryside at the end of November 1885 and rented a room in Antwerp, on the Lange Beeldekensstraat, in a quarter of small houses packed tightly together. Almost at once he began painting what the building itself offered him. This is the back of his own house and its neighbours, seen from a window in the stairwell, with snow on the roofs, in his first winter in the city.

Writing to his brother Theo that December, he mentioned a study of the backs of old houses seen out of his window, and added that Antwerp was a beautiful colour and worth it for the subjects alone.

The perspective wanders. The windows on the left and at the rear do not sit where the walls would put them. In January he enrolled at the city's academy, where new students began by drawing plaster casts.