The Outskirts of Paris

The Outskirts of Paris (1886) documents Van Gogh's sustained interest in the transitional zone where the nineteenth-century city met the countryside — the banlieue with its mixture of market gardens, industrial installations, suburban housing, and the remaining traces of agricultural landscape that Haussmann's redevelopment had not yet consumed. He was drawn to these marginal spaces because they combined the social world of working people — the market gardeners, factory workers, and suburban commuters who inhabited the outskirts — with the natural world of open fields and remaining vegetation. The Paris outskirts had been Impressionist territory since Monet and Sisley had painted the Seine suburbs in the early 1870s, but Van Gogh's approach was more interested in the social geography than in atmospheric light effects. Current location unknown.

The suburban landscape is rendered with Van Gogh's evolving Paris palette — lighter and more varied than his Dutch period. The transitional character of the outskirts is communicated through the mixture of built and natural elements. His brushwork captures both the specific materials of the suburban environment and the quality of Paris light across it.