Vincent van Gogh completed and signed Sower with Setting Sun on or around 25 November 1888. The culmination of a lengthy preoccupation with the sower motif, the canvas condenses the various influences animating the artist as well as his intensive interrogations of painting. This resolutely modern work can also be described as such thanks to the act represented within it and to the equivalence established between the man and the tree.

In a highly original text combining philosophical essay and agricultural treatise, Emanuele Coccia takes a bold look at Vincent van Gogh’s masterpiece. What emerges are unexpected and illuminating affinities between sower and artist, agriculture and painting, landscape and museum, inviting us to rethink the system of relationships between species. Art, which is no longer the prerogative of humans, can finally be returned to the living beings making up our landscapes.