''Girl in White'' (also known as ''Young Girl Standing Against a Background of Wheat'' and ''Woman in a Cornfield'') was painted by

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

in 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, during the last months of his life. ''Girl in White'' has been part of the

Chester Dale Chester Dale (May 3, 1883 – December 16, 1962) was an American banker and patron of the arts. Dale earned large sums from working for the New York Stock Exchange, allowing him to collect 19th and 20th-century French paintings. Although he consi ...

Collection in the National Gallery of Art,

Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

since 1963.

Auvers-sur-Oise

In May 1890, Van Gogh traveled from Saint-Rémy to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

where he had a three-day stay with his brother,

Theo Theo is a given name and a hypocorism. Greek origin Many names beginning with the root "Theo-" derive from the Ancient Greek word ''theos'' (''θεός''), which means god, for example: *Feminine names: Thea, Theodora, Theodosia, Theophania, ...

, Theo's wife

Johanna Johanna is a feminine name, a variant form of Joanna that originated in Latin in the Middle Ages, including an -h- by analogy with the Latin masculine name Johannes. The original Greek form ''Iōanna'' lacks a medial /h/ because in Greek /h/ cou ...

and their new baby Vincent. Van Gogh found that unlike his past experiences in Paris, he was no longer used to the commotion of the city and was too agitated to paint. His brother, Theo and artist Camille Pissarro developed a plan for Van Gogh to go to Auvers-sur-Oise with a letter of introduction for Dr.

Paul Gachet Paul-Ferdinand Gachet (30 July 1828 – 9 January 1909) was a French physician most famous for treating the painter Vincent van Gogh during his last weeks in Auvers-sur-Oise. Gachet was a great supporter of artists and the Impressionist movement ...

, a homeopathic physician and art patron who lived in Auvers. Van Gogh had a room at the inn Auberge Ravoux in Auvers and was under the care and supervision of Dr. Gachet with whom he grew to have a close relationship, "something like another brother." Gachet and his daughter were both subjects for Van Gogh's paintings. For a time, Van Gogh seemed to improve. He began to paint at such a steady pace, there was barely space in his room for all the finished paintings. From May until his death on July 29, Van Gogh made about 70 paintings, more than one a day, and many drawings. Van Gogh painted buildings around the town of Auvers, such as ''

The Church at Auvers ''The Church at Auvers'' is an oil painting created by Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh in June 1890 which now hangs in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France. The actual church is in Place de l'Eglise, Auvers-sur-Oise, France, ...

'', portraits, and the nearby fields. "But for all his appearance of a renewed well-being," observes Wallace, "his life was very near its end." Illness struck Theo's baby, Vincent. Theo had both health and employment issues; he considered leaving his employer and starting his own business. Gachet, said to have his own eccentricities and neurosis, caused Van Gogh sufficient concern to question, "Now when one blind man leads another blind man, don't they both end up in the ditch?" After visiting Paris for a family conference, Van Gogh returned to Auvers more bleak. In a letter he wrote, "And the prospect grows darker, I see no future at all."

The painting

Of the paintings Van Gogh completed in Auvers, there were two of the same woman. He describes her as "a peasant woman, big yellow hat with a knot of sky-blue ribbons." The second painting may be ''Young Peasant Woman with Straw Hat Sitting in the Wheat''. Van Gogh uses the "

picture plane In painting, photography, graphical perspective and descriptive geometry, a picture plane is an image plane located between the "eye point" (or '' oculus'') and the object being viewed and is usually coextensive to the material surface of the w ...

" for dramatic effect. "How painters use the 'picture plane' is a telling measure," Harrison explains, "of the usually intended effects of their work and their disposition toward the spectator." Having the woman fill most of the pictorial space, she appears closer to the audience. Van Gogh further shadowed her face and gave her a "distant, unfocused" gaze. By also having the woman in close proximity, her emotional distance is "poignant".

Comparison to literal likeness

In ''Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction: The Early Twentieth Century,'' the authors compare Van Gogh's ''Girl in White'' to the portrait of a woman in John Byam Shaw's ''1900 Boer War.'' They make the comparison by identifying desired characteristics of modernistic art, such as works "emphasizing formal aspects, and as embodying what they took to be a 'primitive' or 'direct' vision such as Vincent van Gogh's ''Girl in White.'' To modernists, this is desirable over the "exhibited skill and sophistication of literal likeness," such as John Byam Shaw's ''1900 Boer War.'' The more primitive and direct works, they say, provide a richer feeling, whereas the literal interpretation represents a lack of "emotional content".

Provenance

Johanna van Gogh-Bonger Johanna (Jo) Gezina van Gogh-Bonger (4 October 1862 – 2 September 1925) was a multilingual Dutch editor and translator of the letters of the van Gogh brothers. Sister-in-law of the painter Vincent van Gogh, and wife of his brother Theo van Go ...

(1862-1925), the artist's sister-in-law, of

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

sold the painting in August 1908 to J.H. de Bois. Five of the paintings that were sold by Johanna became part of the National Gallery of Art collection. * J.H. de Bois, an art dealer and director of

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

branch of the C.M. Van Gogh gallery had the painting for a portion of 1908. C.M. van Gogh was Vincent's uncle. * Richard Kisling (1862-1913) of Zürich, an avid collector with 4000 paintings, purchased the painting in 1908 from J.H. de Bois. * Hedwig Glatt-Kisling of Zürich had the painting from 1908 to 1929. * Max Bollag, a gallery owner, of Zürich then had the painting. He sold it in 1951 to Chester Dale. *

(1882-1962) of New York owned the painting from 1951 to 1963. * In 1963 the painting was bequeathed to the National Gallery of Art and placed in the Chester Dale Collection. Chester Dale, as passionate and successful in his art collection as he was on Wall Street, bequeathed in 1962 to the National Gallery of Art some of the most important French painting from the late 19th and early 20th centuries in America.

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