Vincent van Gogh | Two peasant women digging in field with snow, 1890

Van Gogh was fascinated with the labour and life of peasants, as expressed in art and literature.

In his paintings and drawings, he prominently featured working men and women.

He believed that to truly capture ‘the heart of the people’, an artist must immerse himself in their world.

He saw labourers as simple, kind-hearted and courageous people, often holding them in higher regard than those he termed "civilized".

Vincent van Gogh | Two peasant women digging in field with snow, 1890 | Kunsthaus Zürich

Giovanni Segantini | L’angelo della vita (Dea cristiana), 1894

The Angel of Life (Christian Goddess) was commissioned in 1891 or shortly before by the banker Leopoldo Albini, together with the Pagan Goddess, now exhibited alongside it.

The two works were intended to form a diptych on the theme of women, a mystical mother in the case of the painting considered here, a worldly and lustful vision in the other.

The two figures are portraits of the family nanny, Baba, and of her son Gottardo (painted from memory, since he must have been twelve years old at the time).

Giovanni Segantini | L’angelo della vita (Dea cristiana), 1894 (detaglio) | GAM - Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milano

Camille Pissarro at the Christie's

Camille Pissarro | Paysannes travaillant dans les champs, Pontoise, 1881

In Paysannes travaillant dans les champs, Pontoise, painted in 1881, Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) depicts a group of five young women harvesting peas on the rural outskirts of Pontoise, a bustling market town about forty kilometers northwest of Paris where he and his family had lived for over a decade.

Pissarro had first treated the theme of picking peas in two oils the previous year, and he returned to the motif at least three times following his move to the agrarian hamlet of Éragny in 1884.

Camille Pissarro | Paysannes travaillant dans les champs, Pontoise, 1881 | Christie's

Happy birthday to Théo van Rysselberghe, born on this day in 1862

Happy birthday to Théophile "Théo" van Rysselberghe (23 November 1862 - 13 December 1926), a Belgian neo-impressionist painter, who played a pivotal role in the European art scene at the turn of the twentieth century.

Van Rysselberghe discovered the pointillist technique when he saw Georges Seurat's La Grande Jatte at the eighth impressionist exhibition in Paris in 1886.

Together with Henry Van de Velde, Georges Lemmen, Xavier Mellery, Willy Schlobach and Alfred William Finch and Anna Boch he "imported" this style to Belgium.

Happy birthday to Édouard Vuillard, born on this day, in 1868

Happy birthday to French Post-impressionist and Nabis painter Edouard Vuillard, born on this day in November 11, 1868.

From 1891 through 1900, Vuillard was a prominent member of the avant garde artistic group Les Nabis, creating paintings that assembled areas of pure color.

His interior scenes, influenced by Japanese prints, explored the spatial effects of flattened planes of color, pattern, and form.

Giovanni Segantini | Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi / Midday in the Alps, 1891

"I am now working passionately in order to wrest the secret of Nature’s spirit from her.

"Nature utters the eternal word to the artist: love, love; and the earth sings life in spring, and the soul of things reawakens"

- Giovanni Segantini.

"Midday in the Alps" is an oil on canvas painting by Italian painter Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899) executed in 1891.

It currently resides at the Segantini Museum in St. Moritz.

Camille Pissarro | The Avenue, Sydenham, 1871

"The Avenue, Sydenham" is an 1871 oil painting by a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro (1830-1903).

This work is a product of the Impressionism movement, measuring 48 x 73 cm.

It currently resides in the National Gallery in London, UK.

From The National Gallery, London: Following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Camille Pissarro and his family left France and moved to London.

This picture is one of 12 he painted while in self-imposed exile there.

One of the largest paintings in the group, this springtime scene, with the trees just coming into leaf, would have been completed in April or May 1871, shortly before Pissarro’s return to France.

Camille Pissarro | The Avenue, Sydenham, 1871 | National Gallery, London

Giovanni Segantini | Spring in the Alps, 1897

"Spring in the Alps" was created in 1897 by Italian Divisionism / Symbolist painter Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899).

The painting is in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

"Spring in the Alps" depicts a panoramic alpine landscape near the village of Soglio - visible on the right with its recognizable church tower - in Val Bregaglia in southwestern Switzerland.

Giovanni Segantini | Spring in the Alps, 1897 | J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Co Breman | Dutch Palmzondag, Laren, 1914

Ahazueros Jacobus Breman, known as Co (1865-1938) was a Dutch painter.

He specialized in landscapes, farms and interior scenes, with figures, and was one of the first Pointillist painters in the Netherlands.

His father, Willem Fredrik Breman (1829-1875), owned a carpentry and blacksmithing shop. He had five siblings, including Evert Breman, a well-known architect.

Vincent van Gogh | Garden with Courting Couples, 1887

Van Gogh called this sunny park scene 'the painting of the garden with lovers'.

Couples in love are strolling under the young chestnut trees and sitting along the winding paths.

Essential Facts:

Title: Garden with Courting Couples: Square Saint-Pierre

Date: Paris, May 1887

Artist: Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: 75.0 cm x 113.0 cm

Current location: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

Oscar Ghiglia | Post-Macchiaioli painter

Born and raised in Livorno, Italian painter Oscar Ghiglia (1876-1945) chose Florence to pursue his artistic ambitions.

Ghiglia was initially trained by his father, who was also a painter, before studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence.

He was particularly influenced by the teachings of Giovanni Fattori while also open to innovations from across the Alps, in particular to the oeuvre of Cézanne and from as well as Swiss and German artists such as Arnold Böcklin and Franz von Lenbach.

Pierre de Belay | Post-Impressionist painter

Pierre Savigny de Belay or Pierre de Belay (1890-1947) was a French painter.

He painted more than a thousand canvases, as many gouaches or watercolors, and drew thousands of sketches.

In 1919, upon his demobilization, Pierre de Belay took up residence in Paris, and stayed there for the rest of his life.

His quarter was Montparnasse.

Susan Entwistle | Pointillist painter

British artist Susan Entwistle is one of the few pointillist painters practising their art.

Her unique style of painting is created with layers of colourful dots.

This technique captures the vibrancy and essence of beautiful gardens, flowers and landscapes.

Susan's work has sprung out of the nostalgia of a childhood that was so often centred on the garden and the natural landscape around her.

Henri Biva (1848-1928)

Henri Biva (Parigi, 1848-1929) è stato un pittore Francese paesaggista, appartenente alla Scuola di Barbizon.

Henri Biva nacque e crebbe a Parigi nel quartiere di Montmartre al n.18 di rue du Vieux Chemin, in una famiglia di artisti.

Fu normale, quindi, per lui e per suo fratello Paul (1851-1900), così come per suo figlio Lucien (1878-1965), intraprendere la strada della pittura.

Elisabeth Chaplin | Post-impressionist painter

Élisabeth Chaplin (17 October 1890, Fontainebleau, France - 28 January 1982, Fiesole, Italy) was a French/Tuscan painter in the Nabis style.

She is known for her portraiture and Tuscan landscapes, most of which reside in the Pitti Palace’s Gallery of Modern Art collection in Florence.

She has two self-portraits in the Vasari Corridor collection.

Il Post-Impressionismo

Vincent van Gogh | The starry night, 1888

Liberandosi dal naturalismo dell'Impressionismo alla fine del 1880, un gruppo di giovani pittori cercò stili artistici indipendenti per esprimere emozioni piuttosto che semplici impressioni ottiche, concentrandosi su temi di simbolismo più profondo.

Attraverso l'uso di colori semplificati e forme definitive, la loro arte era caratterizzata da un rinnovato senso estetico e da tendenze astratte.

Vincent van Gogh | Paintings of peasants

Van Gogh had a particular attachment and sympathy for peasants and other working class people that was fueled in several ways.

He was particularly fond of the peasant genre work of Jean-François Millet and others.

He found the subjects noble and important in the development of modern art.

Van Gogh had seen the changing landscape in the Netherlands as industrialization encroached on once pastoral settings and the livelihoods of the working poor with little opportunity to change vocation.

Paul Signac | Port-en-Bessin, the Outer Harbour, 1884

Paul Signac | Port-en-Bessin, the Outer Harbour, 1884 | Christie's

In his luminous seascape painting of 1884, Paul Signac (1863-1935) recorded his impressions of the outer harbour of Port-en-Bessin.

The scene is suffused with the golden afternoon sunlight, which casts a benevolent warmth over natural and manmade elements alike.

The choppy, dappled surface of the deep blue water reflects a myriad of other colours: the pale rocks and velvety-green grass of the surrounding cliffs, the colourful houses nestled in the crevice of the valley, and the brilliant blue of the sky above.

Paul Signac | Port-en-Bessin, the Outer Harbour, 1884 | Source: © Christie's

Vincent van Gogh | Country road in Provence by night, 1890

Symbol of Provence

For Van Gogh, the cypress is the ultimate symbol of Provence.

"The cypresses still preoccupy me", he writes to his brother Theo, "I'd like to do something with them like the canvases of the sunflowers, because it astonishes me that no one has yet done them as I see them.

It's beautiful as regards lines and proportions, like an Egyptian obelisk.

And the green has such a distinguished quality".

Vincent van Gogh | Country road in Provence by night, 1890 | The Kröller-Müller Museum

Vincent van Gogh ad Arles, 1888-89

Il desiderio di conoscere il Mezzogiorno francese, con la sua luce e le sue tinte mediterranee così lontane dal cromatismo nordico, fu una buona occasione per assimilare gli stimoli artistici raccolti a Parigi e per porre fine alla convivenza con Théo, resa più difficile dal carattere irritabile di entrambi.

«Ho intenzione una volta o l'altra, appena posso, di andarmene nel Sud, dove c'è ancora più colore e ancora più sole [...] Quest'estate, quando dipingevo il paesaggio ad Asnières, vi ho visto più colore che in passato».

Il Meridione francese, luogo elettivo di Zola, Cézanne (che vi avevano trascorso l'infanzia) e di Monticelli (che vi era morto), rispose splendidamente alle esigenze di van Gogh, che vi si stabilì nel febbraio del 1888.