Cows (Vaches), 1890 by Vincent van Gogh

Cows, painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1890, depicts a small herd of red-brown cattle rendered in thick, swirling brushwork against a vivid chartreuse field, a composition Van Gogh adapted from an engraving after Jacob Jordaens that his physician and friend Dr. Paul Gachet owned. Painted in July 1890 during his final weeks at Auvers-sur-Oise, the canvas channels the same restless energy and dense impasto that define Van Gogh’s late style, transforming a borrowed academic subject into something unmistakably his own. It belongs to a small group of works in which Van Gogh reinterpreted paintings by other artists, treating them, in his own words, as a kind of translation from one language of colour into another.

Artist: Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890). Date: 1890.

Cows (Vaches), 1890 by Vincent van Gogh. Pastoral Animal Wall Art Canvas Print.