Thatched Cottages and Houses

This article is about the van Gogh painting. For the architectural design element, see Thatching.
Thatched Cottages and Houses
An oil painting of thatched cottages and houses. The sky is an intense blue complementing the yellow of the vegetation in the foreground. In the middle there is a diagonal band of green that is accentuated by one red roof on the right. The shadows on the houses are tinged with blue. The atmosphere is calm and serene, the smoke from the chimneys curling vertically up on a still day.
Artist Vincent van Gogh
Year 1890
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 60 cm × 73 cm (24.0 in × 27.8 in)
Location State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (F750/JH1984)

Thatched Cottages and Houses is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh that he painted in May 1890 when he lived in Auvers-sur-Oise, France.[1]

Van Gogh spent the last few months of his life in Auvers-sur-Oise, a small town just north of Paris, after he left the asylum in Saint-Rémy in May 1890.

Thatched Cottages and Houses is thought to be the study he mentions in his letter of 21 May 1890 to his brother Theo and wife Jo immediately after arriving in Auvers:"... when I wrote to you I hadn’t yet done anything. Now I have a study of old thatched roofs with a field of peas in flower and some wheat in the foreground, hilly background. A study which I think you’ll like."[2]

Hulsker believes the painting is amongst a group of 20 or so works executed by Vincent immediately after his arrival in Auvers, May 20, and the remainder of the month:" ... we immediately see in this painting the bright colours that, generally speaking, are characteristic of the Auvers period and differentiate them somewhat from the paintings done in Saint-Rémy - although there is naturally no question of a real break with the past from one week to the next."[3]

The painting is in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.[4]

See Van Gogh, Artistic breakthrough and final years, Auves-sur-Oise

See also

References

  1. van der Veen, Wouter; Knapp, Peter (2010). Van Gogh in Auvers: His Last Days. The Monacelli Press. p. 72. ISBN 1-58093-301-7.
  2. "To Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Auvers-sur-Oise, on or about Wednesday, 21 May". Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. Vincent van Gogh Museum. Retrieved 10 February 2012.
  3. Hulsker, Jan (1986). The Complete Van Gogh: Paintings, Drawings, Sketches. New York, N.Y: Harrison House/Harry N. Abrams Distributed by Crown Publishers, Random House. p. 457. ISBN 0-517-44867-X.
  4. Brooks, D. "The Paintings: The Auvers-sur-Oise Period". The Vincent van Gogh Gallery, endorsed by Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. David Brooks (self-published). Retrieved 10 February 2012.
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