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Olive Trees, 1889
The prominent placement of an intensely yellow sun recalls Van Gogh's painting of The Sower (23) of the year before, in which the disc of the sun became a natural halo for the figure. Here the disc hovers above a grove of highly stylised olive trees. At the time Van Gogh wanted to prove to Gauguin and Bernard that an expressive work of art could be made without quoting directly from the Bible.
Oil on canvas
Lent by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis. The William Hood Dunwoody Fund