Cottages

Van Gogh's studies of Brabant cottages from his Nuenen years represent a sustained attempt to document the disappearing agricultural vernacular of the Dutch countryside. He wrote to Theo in 1885 that he wanted to record 'the old nests' before modernisation erased them, seeing the thatched roofs and rough walls as analogues of the peasant life within. These cottages recur throughout his Nuenen output alongside potato-eaters and weavers, forming a coherent social document. The style draws on seventeenth-century Dutch landscape tradition but filtered through the sombre moral vision Van Gogh found in Millet.

A narrow tonal range of earthy greens, browns, and grey dominates. Paint is applied in short, blunt strokes that texture the thatched roofs convincingly. The sky is kept thin and atmospheric against the solid impasto of the buildings and foliage.