Two Poplars in the Alpilles near Saint-Rémy

Two tall poplars rise above a walled field in the countryside near Saint-Rémy, their trunks set against the banded blues and gold of the Provençal landscape. Vincent van Gogh painted the picture in the autumn of 1889, during his year as a voluntary patient at the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, when the trees around the hospital grounds became one of his most frequent subjects. Painted with the thick, rhythmic brushstrokes of his last period, it shows the restless energy he poured into even the most ordinary corner of the landscape during the most productive year of his career.