GOGH, Vincent van
(b. 1853, Groot Zundert, d. 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise)

Two Women Crossing the Fields

July 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise
Oil on paper on canvas, 30 x 60 cm
MacNay Art Museum, San Antonio

Catalogue numbers: F 819, JH 2112.

Fourteen of the Auvers painting are broad-format, and thirteen of them are almost exactly the same 50 x 100 cm format. Doubtless it was under the influence of Puvis de Chavannes that van Gogh decided to measure out his canvas to a new norm, a norm which visually related his work to the frieze, a standard decorative medium in architecture. The first of van Gogh's broad-format paintings, Two Women Crossing the Fields, was even smaller (30 x 60 cm).