Terrace and Observation Deck at the Moulin de Blute-Fin, Montmartre

Painted in 1887 during his Paris years, this canvas of the Moulin de Blute-Fin terrace on the Montmartre butte depicts one of the neighbourhood's most characteristic public spaces — a terrace adjacent to a surviving windmill offering views over Paris to the south and west. Van Gogh had moved to Montmartre partly because of its combination of urban accessibility and residual semi-rural character: the windmills were genuine survivors of an agricultural past that was rapidly giving way to the entertainment industry of cabarets and guinguettes. The Art Institute of Chicago, which holds this work, has an extraordinary concentration of Post-Impressionist material including Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — a painting Van Gogh knew and engaged with directly through his contact with Signac. These two canvases, both products of the same Parisian moment of 1887, offer very different visions of urban leisure: Seurat's systematic and monumental, Van Gogh's animated and intimate.

The composition opens outward from the terrace's foreground, with figures in animated conversation and the cityscape extending behind them. Van Gogh's Paris-period brushwork shows Neo-Impressionist influence — varied, directional strokes building form and atmosphere. The palette is lighter and more varied than his Nuenen canvases.