Enclosed Field with Peasant, by Vincent Van Gogh

Painted out of doors over several days, Enclosed Field with Peasant differs from all of the other size 30 canvases of the motif. It shows much more of the dividing wall to the right, and it is the most accurate topographically, not only in the position of the hut and cottages but, above all, in the close delineation of distant vegetation and trees. The resulting rich, variegated surfaces are expressed in a series of short, slender, brick-shape brushstrokes that are very close to those in the second painting of a quarry.

Van Gogh's most revealing comment on Enclosed Field with Peasant, however, lies in the striking contrast, in color and facture, that he sets up between it and the Reaper. This notion stayed with him, for when he sent the canvas to Theo on 3 January 1890, he described it as:

Ploughed Field with background of mountains - it is the same field as the reaper's of the last summer and can be a pendant to it; I think that one will set off the other'