In the autumn and winter of 1889-1890, as a volunteer patient at the asylum in Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh painted twenty-one copies after Millet, an artist he greatly admired. He regarded his copies as "translations"which resembled a musician's interpretation of a composer's work. He had the black-and-white images - whether prints, reproductions or, as here, an image sent by his brother Theo - posed 'as a subject', and then 'improvised colour on them'. For this work of January 1890, Van Gogh made a sculpture of Millet's First Steps square and placed it on canvas.
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch painter. His work falls under post-impressionism, an art movement that succeeded nineteenth-century impressionism.
