Avenue of Pollard Birches and Poplars
March 1884
Medium
Reed pen and iron-gall ink on tan laid paper
Dimensions
19.2 × 26.5 cm (7 9/16 × 10 7/16 in.)
Classification
drawings (visual works)
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
202382
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Vincent van Gogh seems to have been inspired to make this melancholy drawing after reading the poem “Tristement” (sadly) by the French writer François Coppee, who was known as the “poet of the humble.” The poem describes a mourning widow proceeding along “a very long lane of giant, halfdenuded plane trees.” Time has enhanced the drawing’s autumnal mood. The iron-gall ink that Van Gogh used, once black, has altered to a dark brown and imparted a golden tone to the paper, the pen lines bleeding s...
About the Artist
Vincent van Gogh · 1853–1890
Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853-1890) stands as one of the most influential figures in Western art history, despite a career spanning merely a decade. Born in Groot-Zundert, Netherlands, to a Protestant pastor's family, van Gogh's path to artistic greatness was anything but conventional. His early adulthood saw him working as an art dealer for Goupil & Cie, a language teacher, and a fervent missiona...