Rain

Rain, painted in November 1889 at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole and now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, depicts a ploughed field in the rain — the landscape Van Gogh could observe from the asylum's grounds rendered in the dramatic conditions of an autumn downpour. Weather was a constant presence in Van Gogh's visual world: he painted the same landscapes in sun, wind, and storm, seeking to capture the fundamental character of each condition. Rain at Saint-Rémy offered a specific visual challenge — the landscape obscured by falling water, the ground transformed by wet, the atmospheric conditions reducing color to grey and blue. This work shows him translating atmospheric weather conditions into his graphic mark-making system.

The rain itself is rendered as a field of parallel diagonal lines descending across the entire canvas — a direct graphic device borrowed from Japanese rain paintings that transforms the meteorological phenomenon into a system of visible marks. The rain lines are superimposed over the landscape below, creating a layered visual effect. Van Gogh's palette for this wet, grey subject is appropriately muted — blues, greys, and muted greens rather than the saturated hues of his sunny landscape subjects. The ploughed furrows beneath provide strong parallel lines that echo the rain's own linearity.