Van Goch loved to paint the everyday things, the environment and the things happening in the landscape. This image being one of his later works is lighter than when he was painting in more sombre colours. Here he is experimeting with bright yellows, purples and blues all of which combine to give a lightness of feel that is totally at odds with his peasent images. Here the day and its environs are celebrated even the task of doing the washing by the riverside does not look like an onerous task, the sun is shining and even the driver on the horse and cart is a reflection of the yelllow of a sunny day.
If there is a sombre note to the painting in the middleground on the shore there is a boat half sunk in the water, why would this be so? was it a part of the landscape when Van Gogh painted the scene. Questions aside we can see that Van Gogh was beginging to experiment more with colour and form expressing a different emotion to the drudgery of the peasents life in earlier works such as Peasent Woman near the Hearth 1885