About this work
There is no colour here — only the language of line. *Ploughman in the Fields near Arles* was executed in reed pen and brown ink over graphite on wove paper, measuring just 25.3 × 34.1 cm. Yet the intimacy of the format belies the scene's expansiveness. In the foreground, the edge of a field draws the viewer into the composition; in the midground, framed by two spindly trees, a man ploughs with his horse.
The horizon falls just under halfway up the sheet, above which three loosely drawn farm buildings sit — the largest a long rectangular structure right of centre, and to the left, beyond the horse and ploughman, a smaller structure with a peaked roof.
A low bank of puffy clouds hovers just above the horizon on the right side.
Even though the horse exists only as an outline, one senses the strain of its muscles; the heavy lines defining the peasant's figure convey the weight of his labour. Line does not merely describe form here — Van Gogh used it as the main element, the structural force of the entire image.
The drawing was made in Arles in late March 1888 — just weeks after Van Gogh had arrived in the south of France, electrified by a new sense of purpose. According to Van Gogh himself, the trip to Arles was driven partly by a search for the rich colours he had seen in Japanese prints, and once there, he came to perceive the region as the embodiment of Japan. His reed pen drawings were a direct expression of that obsession: the tool and its mark-making were his way of working in the spirit of Japanese printmaking.
The pen produced dots and lines similar to the Japanese style, and by twisting it, he could control a line's thickness and direction — essential for depicting the organic life of the land. The subject itself carried deep personal weight. The close association of peasants and the cycles of nature particularly interested Van Gogh; ploughing, sowing, and harvesting were symbolic of man's relationship with the earth — "the sower and the wheat sheaf stood for eternity."
The NGA, which now holds the work, notes that *Ploughman in the Fields near Arles* shares with Van Gogh's later *Harvest* drawings "the rhythmic marks used to represent nature's unifying energy."
As wall art, this is a work for the patient and the precise — for someone drawn to mastery of means rather than
