The Saint-Rémy Copies

A man strides across the tilled field, flinging seed with one hand, the seed bag slung across his body; on the horizon stand a red farm implement and a small figure. In early November 1889 Van Gogh painted this after Lerat’s etching of Millet’s Sower, and made a second version in January 1890. He wrote that painting after these Millets was “much rather to translate them into another language than to copy them.”

Noon Rest (after Millet). Two peasants asleep against a haystack. Millet painted exhaustion; he painted golden peace — same pose, different temperature.

First Steps (after Millet). A father crouches, a child takes its first step. He painted this in the asylum — he could not walk out, but the child in the painting could.

Reaper with Sickle (after Millet). The sickle flashes in sunlight. He replaced Millet's grey tones with Provençal blaze — copying is not replication, it is re-illuminating another's composition with one's own light.

A mower seen from behind, in a straw hat, both hands on a long scythe, facing waist-high yellow wheat under a deep blue sky; further off another figure bends to work. In September 1889 Van Gogh wrote that he had copied seven of the ten prints of Millet’s The Labours of the Field; the editors of the letters place this canvas among them.

The second version of Sower (after Millet), painted in Saint-Rémy in January 1890; the first is F689. In an orange hat and blue jacket, the sower strides across a blue-violet field scattering seed; oxen pull a plough in the distance, and the sky is built from short yellow-green strokes. His letter to Theo of 1 February 1890 mentions this version.

Thresher (after Millet). He painted the barn dust as golden light. Millet's original was a labour record; his version is the radiance of labour.

A man in blue bends over a sheaf of wheat, hugging it tight to bind it; behind him rise the stacked sheaves under a pale green-blue sky. The subject is one of the ten prints of Millet’s The Labours of the Field. In September 1889 Van Gogh wrote that he had copied seven of them; the editors of the letters count The Sheaf-Binder among the seven.

Pietà (after Delacroix). Painted after a seizure — Christ's face is said to resemble his own. Blue Virgin, orange Christ; the colour contrast pushed further than the original.

By the roadside a man bends to lift the wounded traveller onto his horse; the wounded man, his head bandaged and his chest bare, rests a hand on his rescuer’s shoulder. An opened chest lies at lower left, and further up the road a figure is seen from behind. Van Gogh had planned this copy after Delacroix since September 1889; in early May 1890 he wrote: “I’ve also attempted a copy of Delacroix’s Good Samaritan.”

Prisoners Exercising (after Doré). Circular high walls, prisoners walking in circles. He painted a prison inside an asylum — the walls shaped like the courtyard where he walked daily. The man in the centre looking up at the sky is him.

Setting out in the morning: the woman sits sideways on the donkey with a basket, the man walks behind with a pitchfork on his shoulder, and beyond them people are already at work in the fields. Between late October 1889 and January 1890 Van Gogh painted all four of Millet’s The Four Times of the Day from prints; this is Morning. In January 1890 he wrote that working from Millet’s black-and-white was “rather translating into another language, the one of colours.”