Farmhouse

Farmhouse, painted in May-June 1890 during Van Gogh's final months at Saint-Rémy, and now at the Rijksmuseum, was produced just weeks before his move to Auvers-sur-Oise. At Saint-Rémy Van Gogh had developed his mature expressive style fully — the swirling, energized surfaces, the vivid color, the pictorial fields pulsating with visible mark-making. This farmhouse subject, rooted in the rural subjects he had loved since his Dutch beginnings, shows him bringing his fully formed southern French style to an enduring thematic concern: the dignity and permanence of agricultural life. The work connects his early Nuenen period with the final explosive phase of his career.

Van Gogh builds the composition through rhythmic, directional strokes that animate every surface — the thatched roof described in horizontal bands, the walls in vertical marks, the surrounding vegetation in swirling curves. His palette at Saint-Rémy is intense and sun-saturated: deep blues, vivid yellows, and earthy ochres applied with impasto urgency. The sky and vegetation show his characteristic swirling energy while the architectural forms are given their own robust, linear treatment.