Sentiero a Montmartre

When Van Gogh painted this in 1886 he had just moved to Paris to live with his brother Theo on the Rue Lepic, at the foot of Montmartre. The hill was not yet the nightclub district of legend. Its upper slopes were still half country, with windmills, rough fences and vegetable plots, and this quiet climbing path runs up through them. You can watch his colour lifting here, the heavy browns of his Dutch years giving way to lighter, airier tones as he took in what the Impressionists around him were doing. He would spend two years in the city before heading south to Arles.