View of Paris

From the heights of Montmartre, where he lived with Theo on rue Lepic, Van Gogh had a sweeping view across Paris's rooftops and boulevards, and this 1886 canvas at the Van Gogh Museum captures that panorama. The view documents his physical and artistic location: on the hill that was home to both the city's most radical artists and its oldest village character, looking down at the dense urban fabric that both attracted and overwhelmed him. The cityscape belonged to a broader Post-Impressionist interest in representing Paris as modern spectacle.

The panoramic cityscape is handled with a palette noticeably lighter and more chromatic than his Dutch townscapes, demonstrating how rapidly Parisian painting was transforming his color sense. The buildings and streets are suggested through summary strokes rather than the careful structural description he applied to Dutch architectural subjects.