Shelter on Montmartre

This 1886 canvas at San Francisco's Legion of Honor depicts a modest shelter or hut on the slopes of Montmartre, where the hillside still retained some of its earlier rural character amid rapid urban development. Van Gogh was drawn to Montmartre's semi-rural fringes, which reminded him of the Dutch and Belgian countryside he had left behind while placing him at the heart of the Parisian avant-garde. The subject—unpretentious vernacular architecture on the edge of the city—exemplifies his democratic approach to subject matter throughout his Paris period.

The modest wooden structure is painted with direct, unidealized facture, its weathered boards and impermanent character emphasized through rough, abbreviated strokes. The surrounding vegetation is treated with greater freedom, showing early signs of the animated brushwork Van Gogh would develop more fully in Arles.