The Large Plane Trees (Road Menders at Saint-Rémy) (1889): Art, History and Details

The Large Plane Trees (Road Menders at Saint-Rémy) (1889) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Like Two Poplars in the Alpilles near Saint-Rémy (on view nearby), Vincent van Gogh painted this autumnal landscape while living in a psychiatric hospital near Saint-Rémy in southern France where he was treated for severe depression. Understanding that painting from nature eased his symptoms, Van Gogh’s physician permitted the artist to paint landscapes outside. Van Gogh described this painting in a letter to his brother Theo: “The last study I did is a view of the village, where they were at work under some enormous plane trees—repairing the pavements. . . . There are heaps of sand, stones, and the gigantic trunks—the leaves yellowing and here and there you can get a glimpse of a house front and small figures.”

Object facts

• Title: The Large Plane Trees (Road Menders at Saint-Rémy)
• Date: 1889
• Creator attribution: Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890)
• Culture: Netherlands
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on fabric
• Dimensions: Framed: 104.5 x 124.5 x 7.6 cm (41 1/8 x 49 x 3 in.); Unframed: 73.4 x 91.8 cm (28 7/8 x 36 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1947.209

A detail from the museum

Van Gogh sometimes created what he called "repetitions," in which he painted the same subject and composition again. This painting has a repetition, currently in the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. Conservation research has shown that the Cleveland painting is the first version.

Collection credit

Gift of the Hanna Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Meyer-Riefstahl, R. "Vincent Van Gogh-II. Van Gogh's Style in Relation to Nature." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 18, no. 93 (December 1910): 155-62.
• Volné Směry: Měsíčník Umělecky nos. 1-5 (1911): 108.
• Coquiot, Gustave. ... Vincent van Gogh; avec 24 reproductions hors-texte des œuvres de Vincent van Gogh. Paris, FR: Ollendorff, 1923

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.