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The Rocks depicts a specific area in the South of France called Montmajour, a rocky terrain located a few miles north of the city of Arles. Painting on site was a struggle for Vincent van Gogh, because the fierce, blustering winds that swept through this region whipped violently against his canvases.

Van Gogh's own creative energy leaps outward through his vigorous brushwork and the astonishing variety of strokes with which he laid down his unmixed colors. The forceful way he moves paint around on the canvas makes his work almost instantly recognizable. One senses the speed and vigor with which Van Gogh transcribed this scene to canvas, capturing the wild, almost electric presence of the site. The artist's manic marking, combined with his broad exploitation of greens, blues, and yellows, makes for an exceeding lively image. The composition-strong and simplified, with the rocks stepping their way back to the craggy tree -grounds the potential chaos of colors and marks. Theo van Gogh, the artist's brother, was so taken by this painting that he immediately framed it and hung it beside The Sower, one of Vincent's undisputed masterpieces.

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The Rocks - Vincent van Gogh - Google Arts & Culture

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The Rocks depicts a specific area in the South of France called Montmajour, a rocky terrain located a few miles north of the city of Arles. Painting on site was a struggle for Vincent van Gogh, because the fierce, blustering winds that swept through this region whipped violently against his canvases.

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La moisson (The Wheatfield behind Saint Paul's Hospital with a Reaper) - Vincent van Gogh - Google Arts & Culture

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Through the window of his room in the Saint-Remy mental hospital, van Gogh looked out on a field. He painted and drew this motif, which lay just beyond the...

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Es un  pintor neerlandés.
Pinto 900 cuadros. aquí vais a ver 10 de estos  famosos  cuadros .

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Cineraria's - Vincent van Gogh - Google Arts & Culture

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In March 1886 Vincent van Gogh went to live in Paris with his brother, an art dealer. Theo told him that his paintings were too dark and that he had to cat...

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Landscape at twilight - Vincent van Gogh - Google Arts & Culture

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"In May 1890 Vincent van Gogh left the asylum at Saint-Rémy for Auvers-sur-Oise, a small village north of Paris which he described as "Edenic." On July 27 he shot himself, dying two days later. The myth of the suffering artist, whose madness enabled him to transcend the limitations of art, has colored perceptions of him ever since. Van Gogh himself noted that bouts of madness only spurred him to work during his periods of sanity; during his final months at Auvers he painted nearly one canvas a day.

In a letter to his younger brother, Theo, dated June 30, 1890, van Gogh explained the structure and brilliant colors of "Undergrowth with Two Figures": "The trunks of the violet poplars cross the landscape perpendicularly like columns," adding "the depth of Sous Bois is blue, and under the big trunks the grass blooms with flowers in white, rose, yellow, and green." Concealed amid the lush carpet of grass and flowers and a proliferation of slender tree trunks, two lovers reiterate the theme of nature's fecundity.

"Undergrowth with Two Figures" has a silvery tonality characteristic of van Gogh's works from Auvers. His brushwork may be swift and visceral, his colors strong and biting, his emotion raw and visible, but the composition reveals no hint of psychological torment. It is painted on a double square canvas, twice as wide as it is high. Van Gogh explored the artistic possibilities of this panoramic format in several of his last paintings.

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Undergrowth with Two Figures - Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, b.1853, d.1890) - Google Arts & Culture

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"In May 1890 Vincent van Gogh left the asylum at Saint-Rémy for Auvers-sur-Oise, a small village north of Paris which he described as "Edenic." On July 27 he shot himself, dying two days later. The myth of the suffering artist, whose madness enabled him to transcend the limitations of art, has colored perceptions of him ever since.

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Van Gogh's night sky is a field of roiling energy. Below the exploding stars, the village is a place of quiet order. Connecting earth and sky is the flamelike cypress, a tree traditionally associated with graveyards and mourning. But death was not ominous for van Gogh. "Looking at the stars always makes me dream," he said, "Why, I ask myself, shouldn't the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France? Just as we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star."

The artist wrote of his experience to his brother Theo: "This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big." This morning star, or Venus, may be the large white star just left of center in The Starry Night. The hamlet, on the other hand, is invented, and the church spire evokes van Gogh's native land, the Netherlands. The painting, like its daytime companion, The Olive Trees, is rooted in imagination and memory. Leaving behind the Impressionist doctrine of truth to nature in favor of restless feeling and intense color, as in this highly charged picture, van Gogh made his work a touchstone for all subsequent Expressionist painting.

The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 35

Find out more about The Starry Night at:
mo.ma/starrynight

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The Starry Night - Vincent van Gogh - Google Arts & Culture

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Van Gogh's night sky is a field of roiling energy. Below the exploding stars, the village is a place of quiet order. Connecting earth and sky is the flamelike cypress, a tree traditionally associated with graveyards and mourning. But death was not ominous for van Gogh.

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In May 1889, after episodes of self-mutilation and hospitalization, Vincent van Gogh chose to enter an asylum in Saint-Rémy, France. There, in the last year before his death, he created almost 130 paintings. Within the first week, he began Irises, working from nature in the asylum's garden. The cropped composition, divided into broad areas of vivid color with monumental irises overflowing its borders, was probably influenced by the decorative patterning of Japanese woodblock prints. There are no known drawings for this painting; Van Gogh himself considered it a study. His brother Theo quickly recognized its quality and submitted it to the Salon des Indépendants in September 1889, writing Vincent of the exhibition: "[It] strikes the eye from afar. It is a beautiful study full of air and life." Each one of Van Gogh's irises is unique. He carefully studied their movements and shapes to create a variety of curved silhouettes bounded by wavy, twisting, and curling lines. The painting's first owner, French art critic Octave Mirbeau, one of Van Gogh's earliest supporters, wrote: "How well he has understood the exquisite nature of flowers!"

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Irises - Vincent van Gogh - Google Arts & Culture

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In May 1889, after episodes of self-mutilation and hospitalization, Vincent van Gogh chose to enter an asylum in Saint-Rémy, France. There, in the last year before his death, he created almost 130 paintings. Within the first week, he began Irises, working from nature in the asylum's garden.

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The white orchard - Vincent van Gogh - Google Arts & Culture

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Van Gogh hoped his paintings of orchards in bloom would sell well because they would appeal to many people. He experimented with his painting technique by ...

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Peasant Woman Planting Potatoes - Vincent van Gogh - Google Arts & Culture

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Sunflowers - Vincent Willem van Gogh, Dutch, 1853 - 1890 - Google Arts & Culture

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Explore collections and stories from around the world with Google Arts & Culture.