夜 （仿米勒）

A peasant couple sit by the light of an oil lamp. The woman is mending clothes and her husband is working on a wicker basket. Their child is asleep; next to the fireplace, a cat dozes. The picture radiates a quiet serenity. That's striking, knowing Vincent van Gogh mad it during his stay in the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy. Van Gogh based the painting on a print by Millet form the series 'Les quatre heures de la journée' (the four times of day). Although Van Gogh painstakingly recorded the composition, he did not consider this copying. He saw it more as ‘translating’ from black-and-white to colour, just as a musician can freely interpret the work of another composer. Van Gogh thus succeeded in suffusing this work with an entirely individual character and sensibility.