Nidos de pájaros

In the autumn of 1885 Van Gogh was living with his parents in the Brabant village of Nuenen, still painting in the dark, earthy tones he then preferred. Birds' nests became a small obsession that October. His friend Anton Kerssemakers remembered that he kept as many as 30 of them in his studio, some found on walks across the heath, others bought from local children for about 10 cents each. He set several against a near-black ground and treated them as a study in tone and texture, the woven twigs catching what little light there is. He tied them in his own mind to the thatched cottages he was painting nearby, dwellings he called human nests, homes for the poor country people he most wanted to paint.