Houses at Auvers was painted in 1890, shortly after Vincent van Gogh arrived in Auvers-sur-Oise and he seemed to be on the mend. Indeed, Vincent's first letters to his brother Theo from Auvers-sur-Oise were cautiously optimistic. His health was good, and he found his room comfortable. The village had a picturesque appeal; even the new homes were "radiant and sunny and covered with flowers." Unlike the writhing rhythms that characterized his landscape work at Saint-Rémy, Vincent van Gogh's first paintings at Auvers, such as Houses at Auvers, exhibited a new stability, seen in the strongly interlocked strokes of heavy pigment.
While in Auvers-sur-Oise, Vincent van Gogh continued his exploration of the possibilities of color. Keep reading to see how van Gogh did this.