Vincent in Saint-Rémy
(1889) 

In the autumn of 1889, Van Gogh painted the ravine near the asylum in the southern French town of Saint‑Remy. He wrote about it to his dear friend Emile Bernard: “Such subjects certainly have a fine melancholy, but then it is fun to work in rather wild places, where one has to dig one’s easel in between the stones lest the wind should blow the whole caboodle over.” The following spring, Van Gogh sent this painting to Paris, where Paul Gauguin saw it and wrote to him: “In subjects from nature you are the only one who thinks. I talked about it with your brother, and there is one that I would like to trade with you for one of mine of your choice. The one I am talking about is a mountain landscape. Two travelers, very small, seem to be climbing there in search of the unknown…Here and there, red touches like lights, the whole in a violet tone. It is beautiful and grandiose.”

Recent collaborative research has revealed beneath the surface of “Ravine” an earlier painting of a hillside in bloom, likely painted in June of the same year. It appears Van Gogh found himself short of materials; sacrificing the earlier composition, he reused the canvas to create this painting. <https://collections.mfa.org/objects/33491/ravine

Les Peiroulets Ravine

October, 1889


Oil on canvas
73.0 x 92.0 cm. 

Boston: Museum of Fine Arts
https://collections.mfa.org/objects/33491/ravine