Image: public domain, courtesy of The Cleveland Museum of Art

The Large Plane Trees

Vincent van Gogh, 1889

Workers repair a road beneath huge plane trees with yellow autumn leaves, near Saint-Rémy in southern France. Van Gogh painted the same scene a second time; that version now hangs in Washington.

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Did you know?

Van Gogh painted it on an unusual patterned cloth: look for tiny red diamonds peeking through unpainted spots.
He painted it outdoors on the spot, despite the cold; it was his last outdoor scene of that year.
The street is the Cours de l’Est, which Van Gogh called the main boulevard of Saint-Rémy.
In a letter to his brother Theo, he described heaps of sand, stones and the gigantic tree trunks.
Look past the workers for small figures walking by and a glimpse of a house front.
The painting came to the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1947 as a gift from the Hanna Fund.

About the artist

Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) was born in the Netherlands and worked there, in Paris, in the south of France at Arles and Saint-Rémy, and finally at Auvers-sur-Oise.

In only about ten years as an artist he created hundreds of vibrant paintings, among them Sunflowers, The Starry Night, Irises and The Bedroom.

He wrote more than 800 letters, most of them to his beloved brother Theo, full of warmth and of his joy in color and nature.

Vincent van Gogh ›

Where it is today: The Cleveland Museum of Art · Museum page