Granja en un campo de trigo

Van Gogh reached Arles in February 1888 to find the place under snow. By May the fields around the town had turned, and he wrote to his brother Theo that it was like a beautiful Japanese dream, yellow and purple flowers everywhere. This small farmhouse under a wide sky is that mood set down quickly. Look closely and the paint changes method partway across: thick loaded strokes in some places, tiny separate dots in others, the two techniques he had picked up in Paris from the Impressionists and the pointillists, used side by side. The colours are bright and barely mixed. It was the beginning of the most productive 15 months of his life.