Watermill at Gennep

Four years before the sunflowers, Van Gogh was in the Dutch village of Nuenen, living with his parents and painting in the dark, earthy browns of the old masters he admired. In November 1884 he set up in the cold in front of an old watermill at Gennep, near Eindhoven, and worked on a canvas over a metre and a half wide. He wrote to his brother Theo about the large study he was making, and a local acquaintance, Anton Kerssemakers, remembered watching him at it. There is no bright colour here yet, only the mill, the still water and a grey Brabant sky. It is the largest painting on canvas Van Gogh ever made.