Vue de la Crau (The Plain of La Crau)

This drawing, which van Gogh made in May 1888 from the heights of the Montmajour Abbey near Arles, shows clear echoes of classical landscapes in its composition. From a rocky foreground shown quite close, with a few plants, there is a more distant middle ground, while the background is dominated by the steeply rising Montange des Cordes. To the left and right of this mountain, the viewer can gaze more deeply in the distance, almost like Dutch world landscapes from the 16th century. Despite giving a first impression of being overgrown and harsh, fields and an irrigation canal, which still exists today and which crosses the plain, provide evidence the work of humans in and on the landscape. Even more remarkable than this harmony of topographical exactness and classical composition is the work’s completely new style of drawing, which manifests van Gogh’s pioneering importance, especially for the art of drawing: Starting with a sketch done in pencil, van Gogh placed water color lines with reed pen and goose-quill whose elliptic character develops, on the one hand, a strong formal independence, providing on the other, however, a quite illustrative and nuanced reproduction of the subject.