Poplars near Nuenen

In the autumn of 1885 Van Gogh was about to leave Nuenen, the Brabant village where his parents lived, and this lane of poplars was among the last things he painted there. He painted it over an older picture. Underneath lies a view from 1884 of the village's old church tower, whose spire was taken down in 1885. A year later, in Paris, surrounded by the brighter palette of the Impressionists, he went back into the canvas with paints he had hardly touched in Holland, cobalt and cerulean blue, cadmium yellow and viridian green. Four years of research and cleaning at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen pulled these three moments apart, and the painting went back on view in February 2026. The Paris layer is the easiest to find: the flecks of blue in the sky and the sharp green touches on the tree trunks.