Trees

This is a sous-bois, a view straight into undergrowth with no horizon and no sky, painted in the summer of 1887 when Van Gogh was working in the parks and woods around Paris. That spring he had been out along the Seine at Asnieres with Paul Signac, a younger painter who laid his colour down in small separate touches, and the method stayed with Van Gogh for a season. Here it goes into the light dropping through the leaves, short strokes and dots of white, yellow and red scattered over a great many different greens. The canvas is 46 by 36 centimetres, one of the studies he left in his brother Theo's Paris apartment in July of that year.