束を束ねる農婦(ミレーに基づく)

Van Gogh painted this in 1889 while he was a voluntary patient at the asylum in Saint-Rémy, in Provence, recovering from the breakdowns that had begun the winter before. Shaken and short of confidence, and with no models to pose for him inside, he went back to an artist he had revered since his twenties: Jean-François Millet, the great painter of French peasant life. He worked from black-and-white prints after Millet, this stooped woman gathering wheat among them, and translated them into his own colour. He compared it to a musician playing another composer's piece rather than simply copying, improvising the blues and yellows himself. He made about 20 of these Millet copies during his year shut away, using the old master to keep his hand and his nerve steady.