Vista do ateliê de Vincent

Van Gogh came to Paris early in 1886, a Dutch painter of dark peasants and potato eaters, and moved in with his brother Theo, who dealt pictures for a living. They took an apartment high up on the rue Lepic in Montmartre, and from its windows the whole grey and blue sprawl of the city opened out below. What Paris did to his painting is written in views like this one. He met the Impressionists, saw their bright broken colour, and his own palette lifted off the brown Dutch earth almost overnight. Here the rooftops are laid down in small separate touches of blue, green and rose, the city dissolving toward the horizon.