The Road Menders

Painted in November 1889 during Van Gogh's confinement at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy, The Road Menders depicts workers repairing a street lined with enormous plane trees whose roots were disrupting the pavement. Van Gogh repeatedly painted this subject from his window or nearby, finding in the road workers a community of purposeful labor that contrasted with his own enforced idleness. The massive plane trees — their trunks and bare branches filling much of the canvas — gave him structural material through which to exercise his extraordinary graphic energy. The Phillips Collection version is among the most powerful treatments of this motif.

The towering plane trees are rendered with Van Gogh's signature undulating, energetic brushstrokes that animate every surface — bark, branches, road surface, sky. The palette uses cool blues and grays of autumn light, punctuated by the earthy tones of the road and figures. Compositional depth is achieved through the avenue of trees receding into distance.