Windmills on Montmartre

Vincent van Gogh arrived in Paris from Antwerp early in the spring of 1886. His younger brother Theo had been living at the bottom of the hill of Montmartre, but, upon Vincent's arrival, rented a flat halfway up the hill to share with his brother. A famous dance hall, Le Moulin de la Galette, was near their flat. This work shows the landscape as seen from behind the dance hall, with windmills and the tricolor flags flying on them. This painting by van Gogh may seem subdued when compared with Renoir's lively, lavish painting of that same dance hall from about a decade earlier. Compared with the work van Gogh created while in the Netherlands, however, it is glowing with bright tones not found in those earlier paintings.