The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Winter, 1884

Casting long shadows in the late winter light, the scrawny, leafless trees stood in the garden of his father’s vicarage. Van Gogh made the drawing not as a study, but as an autonomous work, intended for sale. The planarity achieved by eliminating depth and the bold linearity of the drawing as a whole indicate that Van Gogh was familiar with Japanese woodblock prints. At the time he made this drawing, he was still finding his feet as an artist, as he did not commit himself to a career in art until 1880.