Vincent Van Gogh

Jacob-Baart de la Faille, L'œuvre de Vincent van Gogh, Catalogue raisonné, Paris & Brussels, 1928, vol. I, no. 265, catalogued; vol. II, illustrated pl. LXXI
Jan Hulsker, The Complete Van Gogh, Paintings, Drawings, Sketches, New York, 1980, no. 1100, illustrated p. 238

Vue de Paris aux environs de Montmartre was painted in the Spring of 1886, only a few months after Van Gogh moved to the French capital. In February 1886, the 33-year old Van Gogh left the Academy in Antwerp to join his brother Theo in Paris. He began studies at Cormon's atelier where he met fellow artists John Russel, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Emile Bernard. Working for Boussod & Valadon at the time, Theo managed a small art gallery in the Boulevard Montmartre that dealt in Barbizon and Impressionist paintings. Introduced by his brother, Van Gogh came to meet some of the most innovative and leading artists of the time including Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro. Absorbing the various artistic styles pioneered by the Parisian avant-garde, Van Gogh's encounter with the artistic circles in Paris was to be one of the most seminal elements in developing his independent and distinctive style.

The brothers took up a small apartment together at 54 rue Lepic very near the vantage point from which the present work was painted. As John Rewald remarked of their new lodging, 'Their new flat provided the brothers with more space; it delighted them because of its unique view over all of Paris and even as far as the distant hills of Meudon and Saint-Cloud. This view reminded them of a lyrical description of the Parisiam panorama in one of Zola's recent novels and Theo even ventured the opinion that it might offer subjects not only for paintings but also for verses' (J. Rewald, Post-Impressionism from Van Gogh to Gauguin, New York, 1956, pp. 23 & 24).

The present work, closely relating to a work in the Rijskmuseum in Amsterdam and another in the Kunstmuseum in Basel, is one of four views of the rooftops of Paris painted by the artist in 1886. The view is seen from the Butte Montmartre (fig. I) with the city extending south before it and the rooftops of Paris seen in the foreground. The canvas is distinctly divided between the rooftops and the sky with the horizon in the middle-ground. The trees in the immediate foreground offer a contrast to the industrialized grey and brown rooftops of the city and the whole composition is lightened and broadened by the large expanse of sky above it.