Il vecchio mulino

Van Gogh painted this old mill near Arles in the autumn of 1888, and it went almost straight into the post. On the 4th of October he sent seven of his canvases to the painters gathered at Pont-Aven in Brittany, a swap of pictures with Gauguin, Emile Bernard and Charles Laval so the friends could own a piece of each other's work. This was one of them. Within days Gauguin packed up and travelled south to move into the Yellow House with him, the visit that would end nine weeks later with the razor and the severed ear. For now the mood is still hopeful, a solid stone building in the flat farmland Van Gogh called the Crau, worked in his thick warm autumn colour.