This painting, Houses at Auvers, was one of van Gogh's last. He took his own life about a moth after it was completed, in the same village that it was painted. "With Cezanne and Gauguin the greatest of post-impressionist artists. He (Van Gough) powerfully influenced the current of expressionism in modern art.""(External link, blackboard: web museum, Paris: Vincent Van Gogh). "Van Gogh moved in 1890 to the village of Auvers, near Paris, placing himself in the care of Doctor Paul Gachet, who had been interested in both Psychiatry and the arts. Here, Van Gogh depicted the street not far from Dr. Gachet's house, creating a flattened tapestry of shapes in which the tiled and thatched roofs form a patchwork of texture and color. Although based on observation, Houses at Auvers- with its swirling, stabbing brushstrokes and sinuous contours- is a landscape of emotions, charged with energy and passionate feeling.""(External links, Blackboard: M.F.A Boston: European Art to 1900; Houses at Auvers). .
The following two items will be presented in an integrated format. .
1) The artists use of line.
-The lines in this piece show direction. They lead the eye down the road that the person is walking.
-The lines imply volume and solid mass in the houses and trees.
-The lines set boundaries for the eye so that all the shapes do no blend in to one mass of color.
-The implied lines of the road intersecting at one point suggest distance.
2) The artist's use of shape.
-The use of shapes to set up types of geometric boundaries such as the houses.
-The irregular shapes such as the bushes and trees.
-The regular or precise shapes such as the houses and horizon. .
The following two terms will also be presented in an integrated format.
1) The artist's use of directional forces.
-The implied lines coming from the house in the distance start the directional force. (Starting at the top right, and moving in a clockwise pattern.).
-The eye then moves from that, to the cliffs in the background.
