Farmhouse in Nuenen, 1885

About the Work

The old farmhouse is crooked and ramshackle. There is no hint of the industrialisation which was also advancing into this rural region in the Netherlands province of Brabant. Shortly before Van Gogh encountered the Impressionists in France, he created a monument in earth tones to the hard-working peasants of his homeland. Although this painting does not yet demonstrate the radical approach of his later works, it nonetheless already hints at the "lion's claws", as a critic observed in 1923 after a visit to the Städel.