15
Trees in the Garden of the Asylum, 1889
Two curving tree trunks, cropped at the top and bottom of the picture, frame a view towards one of the terraced lawns at the edge of the hospital gardens. Van Gogh greatly admired and collected Japanese woodblock prints, in which such dramatic compositional devices were common. This work’s graphic quality is counterbalanced by his choice to paint a densely worked sky.
Oil on canvas
Private collection