Ravine

Van Gogh painted the ravine at Saint-Rémy — likely the rocky gorge of Les Peiroulets near the asylum — in late autumn 1889, producing two large canvases that he described to Theo as among the most difficult subjects he had ever attempted. The ravine subject presented him with the problem of depicting deep, enclosed space cut into rock, with a shallow stream at the bottom, without conventional perspective devices. He wrote that it had taken 'a great deal of work' and that he had struggled to prevent the composition from becoming 'confused.' The resulting paintings are among the most dramatic landscape works of his final year.

The rocky walls are built from long, dragged strokes of violet, ochre, and dark green that convey the geological mass and layering of the stone. The stream below is indicated in broken strokes of blue-white. The confined, vertical composition creates an overwhelming sense of enclosure and compressed depth.