The Road Menders is an 1889 Post-Impressionist painting by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh.
Analysis of The Road Menders
The Road Menders is a street scene showing figures on the left going about their day and on the right a number of workers attending to construction works. Dutch Post-Impressionist Vincent Van Gogh painted this work in 1889 during his time in Saint-Rémy in Southern France. The road menders of the title are discernible in the background hard at work and quickly painted.
The scene is one of disorder, with bricks and rubble throughout. It marks the disruption of every day, which is leavened only partially by the sinuous detail of the enormous trees. These trees are, however, colored in a sickly yellow – as much a testament to a disordered mind as to faithfulness to nature.
The Road Menders by Vincent Van Gosh is in the Phillips Collection in Washington DC in the United States.