Modern Art

Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation. Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. 

This paintings is  Country road in Provence by Night I have a print of his one hanging in my living room and it has grown on me quite a bit over the last year. I like the juxtaposition between the dark foreboding sky and the light path with two farmers walking home from work. It feels like Fall to me with rich colors and the farmers in their heavy coats. There's a chill in the air.

Van Gogh painted this in May of 1890 while he was staying in a mental hospital in Saint-Rémy that had once beena monastery. He was institutionalized there after a series of breakdowns in early 1889, and it ended up being one of the most creative times of his life. The hospital was surrounded by beautiful open fields that inspired much of his work for the next year, when he worked on a series of paintings of cypresses including "A Wheatfield with Cypresses," "Road with Cypress and Star" (picture above), and probably his best known of these pieces, "Starry Night" . 

According to Kathleen Powers Erickson, Road with Cypress and Star more strongly reflects van Gogh's belief that he would soon die than the earlier painting The Starry Night.