Snowy Landscape with Arles in the Background

Van Gogh's Snowy Landscape with Arles in the Background was an unusual subject — snow in Provence was a rare occurrence that he documented when it fell in early 1888. He described the excitement of seeing the landscape transformed by an overnight snowfall, everything white, the colors of the orchards and fields temporarily erased. The city of Arles visible in the background connects the pure landscape to its human context. This London-based painting is a rare document of a meteorological event that briefly transformed Van Gogh's new southern home into something resembling his Dutch origin.

The snowy landscape is rendered in a palette restricted by the subject's own chromatic simplicity — whites and grays of snow, the blue-gray of a winter sky. Van Gogh captures the specific quality of Mediterranean winter light on snow, different from northern winter. The city of Arles in the distance provides a warm note of earth tones and rooftops against the white landscape.