Ravine

Van Gogh painted the ravine at Saint-Rémy — most likely the Gorge of Les Peiroulets near the asylum — in late November 1889, and described the resulting canvases to Theo as among the most challenging subjects he had ever attempted. The confined, vertical space of a rocky gorge presented compositional problems quite unlike the open panoramas or enclosed gardens that made up most of his Saint-Rémy landscape work: there was no sky visible, no horizontal to anchor the composition, and the overlapping planes of rock and vegetation created a visual complexity he found genuinely difficult to organise. He wrote that the paintings had required 'a great deal of work' and expressed uncertainty about their success. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston holds this ravine canvas as one of its most important Van Gogh holdings, alongside the La Berceuse version and other key works from the Saint-Rémy and Arles periods.

The rocky walls are built from long, dragged strokes of violet, ochre, and dark green that convey the geological mass and layering of the stone. The stream below is indicated in broken strokes of blue-white. The confined, vertical composition creates an overwhelming sense of enclosure and compressed depth.