It was not until the age of thirty-five that van Gogh decided to be a painter. He had travelled and worked as an art dealer, librarian and lay preacher. Penniless and without prospects, he returned to his parents’ parsonage in Nuenen in 1885. There he carried out his first drawings and oil sketches. For him painting was not decoration; rather, he wanted to move people with his work. He sought his subjects among the peasants of the Brabant province. Full of respect for these hard-working country folk, he painted monuments to them with energetic brushstrokes and earthy shades. The de Groot family cottage is a central – and much-varied – motif of his “black paintings”.