Ponti sulla Senna ad Asnières

Van Gogh painted this in the summer of 1887, during the two years he spent in Paris living with his brother Theo. He had arrived from the Netherlands painting dark peasant scenes, and in Paris he met Signac and Bernard and saw young painters building pictures out of small separate touches of pure colour. He took the train out to Asnieres, an industrial suburb on the Seine, and here he lays down the river, the sky and the iron railway bridges in bright broken strokes, a woman with a red parasol set against the water. He was still experimenting with the method, and within a year he left Paris for Arles in the south.