Haystacks in Provence

Van Gogh painted haystacks in the Provençal landscape around Arles in the summer of 1888, a subject Monet would make famous in his serial treatment beginning in 1890-91. Van Gogh's approach was less concerned with serial variation of light than with the haystacks as presences in the landscape — golden geometric forms asserting human agricultural order against the wild Provençal sky. The Kröller-Müller Museum's version shows the stacks in the particular intense light of the Midi, their golden yellow contrasting with the blue-violet of distance. The subject allowed Van Gogh to work through his new, high-keyed Provençal palette.

The haystacks are painted with dense, directional strokes that give the circular forms both mass and texture. Van Gogh's palette is intensely warm — yellows and golds against the blue-greens and purples of the surrounding landscape — creating the complementary contrast he had studied in color theory. The sky is rendered with his characteristic swirling energy.