Дождь

Van Gogh painted this from a window of the asylum at Saint-Remy, where he had checked himself in during the summer of 1889 to try to steady his mind. From his room he could look down on an enclosed wheatfield ringed by a wall, and he painted it over and over through the seasons. This is the only time he caught it in the rain, an October downpour that kept him inside. The rain itself is those hard diagonal streaks slashing across the whole surface, a trick he took directly from the Japanese woodblock prints he collected and loved. He had less than a year to live. The field is bare and grey, the far hills lost in mist, and the wall climbs the canvas at a steep angle that pushes the eye up and out.