Vincent van Gogh - Landscape Under a Stormy Sky 1888
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Landscape Under a Stormy Sky 1888
59x70cm oil/canvas
Gstaad, Switzerland: Collection Louis and Evelyn Franck
Auction House - Sotheby's, New York 2015 LOT SOLD. 54,010,000 USD
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From Sotheby's: Fine Art Auctions
Van Gogh's dramatically atmospheric Paysage sous un ciel mouvementé is one of the finest of the artist's Arles landscapes. Painted amidst the most fruitful period of the artist's career, when his canvases were flooded with rich passages of densely-painted color, the composition depicts a verdant field under threat of an explosive rainstorm. Van Gogh creates a scene of intense anticipation here, replete with psychological drama as the laborers hurry to finish their work before the heavens rain down upon them. This painting was completed only two months before Van Gogh executed what is arguably his most celebrated work, The Starry Night, now in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Paysage sous un ciel mouvementé can be considered the thundering precursor to the MoMA picture and the first act of Van Gogh's grand celestial exploration. Both of these paintings celebrate the majestic beauty of nature and the uncontrollable and often turbulent forces that shaped Van Gogh's world.