First Steps, After Millet

In fall and winter 1889-90, while a voluntary patient at the asylum in Saint-Remy, Van Gogh painted twenty-one copies after Millet, an artist he greatly admired. He considered his copies translations akin to a musician's interpretation of a composer's work. He let the black-and-white images-whether prints, reproductions, or, as here, a photograph that his brother, Theo, had sent-pose as a subject, then he would improvise color on it. For this work of January 1890, Van Gogh squared-up a photograph of Millet's?First Steps?and transferred it to the canvas.�