Vincent van Gogh painted The Old Mill in 1888. Van Gogh worked at top speed during this time, pouring all his energy into his painting. Van Gogh became so immersed in the physical process of brushing pigment on canvas that his brush strokes took on an expressive quality quite apart from the subject of the painting. The apparently serene subject of an old mill with a strolling couple in the foreground and cultivated fields in the distance has a disturbing emotional effect as a result of the thick articulation of the strokes. (http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/arts/artwork/vincent-van-gogh-paintings-from-arles20.htm)