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View of Arles from Montmajour, 1888
The distinctive skyline of Arles, with the smoking chimneys of the town’s factories on the far left, was recorded by Van Gogh as he stood on the heights of Montmajour Abbey. He described the scene to his brother as a contrast between ‘the wild and romantic foreground - and the broad, tranquil distant prospects with their horizontal lines’. He considered it the first image in a series he dedicated to the site.
Reed and quill pen and ink and pencil on paper
The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo