Weaver Standing in Front of a Loom

When Vincent van Gogh painted this in 1884, he was living in Nuenen, the Dutch village where his father was the Protestant pastor, and he was still years away from the bright color he's now loved for. Through that winter he became fascinated by the local linen weavers and returned again and again to their cottages, making a whole series of them. What holds the picture is the loom itself, a big old oak machine whose dark beams fill the room and almost swallow the small man working behind them. Van Gogh complained in his letters that the cottages were so cramped he could never step back far enough to draw the loom properly. The result puts the heavy wooden frame in charge and leaves the weaver as one more part inside it.