Raccolto in Provenza

Van Gogh reached Arles in early 1888 and spent his first southern summer painting against the clock, because the wheat on the plain of La Crau would not stand for long. By June the harvest was in full swing and he worked fast in fierce heat to catch it. This is one of those pictures, a field of cut and bundled grain baking under a hot sky, the low Alpilles hills along the horizon. He rated it highly, telling his brother Theo that this canvas kills all the rest. The thick, hurried strokes are the sound of a man racing the season. It hangs today in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.