Arles; View from the Wheatfields 1888

Vincent van Gogh made this reed pen drawing, "Arles; View from the Wheatfields," while living in the South of France, where he hoped to establish an artistic community. The image depicts the countryside outside Arles, a town that was rapidly industrializing at the time. In the background, you can see factories with smoking chimneys alongside traditional buildings like churches. In the foreground, peasant laborers are working in the wheatfields. We see here a pastoral scene. It is, however, one that is on the verge of being overtaken by the forces of modernity. The drawing captures the tension between rural and urban life, between the traditional and the modern. As art historians, we can use a variety of sources to understand this drawing better. We can consult letters, newspapers, and census records from the period. It shows that art is not created in a vacuum, but is always shaped by its social and institutional context.