Thatched Cottages and Houses

Van Gogh painted this in May 1890, in the last village of his life. He had just left the asylum in the south and come north to Auvers-sur-Oise, a small place outside Paris, to be near a doctor who painted. Almost the first thing he wrote to his brother Theo was about the roofs. Auvers, he said, was really beautiful, with many old thatched roofs that were becoming rare. Those disappearing roofs became one of his subjects here, the heavy thatch rendered in thick restless strokes against the greens of the gardens. He had a little over two months left. He would be dead by the end of July, still painting the village almost daily.