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

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)

Vincent van Gogh | Montmartre series

The Montmartre paintings are a group of works that Vincent van Gogh created in 1886 and 1887 of the Paris district of Montmartre while living there, at 54 Rue Lepic, with his brother Theo.

Rather than capture urban settings in Paris, van Gogh preferred pastoral scenes, such as Montmartre and Asnières in the northwest suburbs.

Of the two years in Paris, the work from 1886 often has the dark, somber tones of his early works from the Netherlands and Brussels.

Van Gogh | Reminiscence of Brabant, 1890

This landscape was painted during one of Van Gogh's difficult periods. He was in the hospital in Saint-Rémy.

When he had to stay indoors but wanted to paint, he had to find subject matter.

Title: Reminiscence of Brabant

Artist: Dutch Post-Impressionist painter, (1853-1890)

Date: Saint-Rémy: March-April, 1890

Dimensions: 29.0 x 36.5 cm

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Current location: Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum

Van Gogh | The Potato Eaters, 1885

Van Gogh saw the Potato Eaters as a showpiece, for which he deliberately chose a difficult composition to prove he was on his way to becoming a good figure painter.

The painting had to depict the harsh reality of country life, so he gave the peasants coarse faces and bony, working hands.

He wanted to show in this way that they ‘have tilled the earth themselves with these hands they are putting in the dish ... that they have thus honestly earned their food’.

Vincent Van Gogh | Bridge in the rain (after Hiroshige), 1887

Van Gogh greatly admired Japanese woodcuts for their bright colours and distinctive compositions.

He based this painting of a bridge in the rain on a print by the famous artist Utagawa Hiroshige.

Van Gogh made the colours more intense than in the original, however.

Vincent van Gogh | A Sunday in Eindhoven, 1885

"A Sunday in Eindhoven" is a painting by Vincent van Gogh, created in Nuenen in May - September, 1885 and located at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Title: A Sunday in Eindhoven.

Artist: Vincent van Gogh.

Date: Nuenen, May-September 1885.

Style: Post-Impressionism.

Media: Watercolour, pen and ink, on paper

Dimensions: 20.8 cm x 29.5 cm.

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

Vincent van Gogh | A Sunday in Eindhoven, 1885 | Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Vincent van Gogh | The Cottage, 1885

The old cottage beneath the red evening sky presents an idyllic picture of rural life.

Van Gogh called these humble farmhouses 'people's nests'.

He felt they had a sheltering quality.

This cottage contains two houses with two front doors and a shared chimney.