Willows at Sunset

Van Gogh's sunset willow paintings from his Dutch period — made in Nuenen and possibly Etten — belong to his sustained engagement with the most characteristic features of the flat Dutch landscape: the pollarded willows lining roads and drainage ditches, bent and repeatedly cut back by centuries of human management. He found in these trees a combination of natural and human history that interested him: the willow's shape was determined by repeated labour, making it a living record of agricultural work just as the faces of the peasants he painted were shaped by their physical lives. The sunset palette — orange, gold, violet — anticipates the southern colours of his Arles period while remaining within the Barbizon-influenced tradition of Dutch twilight landscape. The Kröller-Müller Museum's canvas is one of several pollarded-willow sunset views that document this recurring preoccupation across his Dutch years.

A warm orange-yellow horizon is set against a violet-pink sky rendered in thin, horizontal strokes. The willow silhouettes are painted in dark sienna and umber with evident speed. The handling is looser than the figure paintings of the same period, suggesting a plein-air sketch executed rapidly.