Storm
This conversation is connected to Storm.
A row of tall, thin trees bends hard to the right under heavy wind, their dark canopies streaming sideways against a sky of massive gray and white storm clouds. A dirt road curves from the foreground past a whitewashed wall and a small church or chapel at the left, then splits toward a white farmhouse with a red-orange roof at the right. The flat Brabant landscape stretches into the distance — green fields, a few scattered buildings, a dark horizon line. A puddle at the lower right reflects the sky. The whole painting is dark and green-gray, with the only warm color coming from a patch of rust-red leaves on one tree and the farmhouse roof. Laermans went deaf from meningitis at eleven and spent his career painting the rural Brabant countryside — whitewashed walls, flat fields, heavy skies. His eyesight failed in 1924 and he never painted again.