Der grüne Weinberg

On the 3rd of October 1888, van Gogh walked out to a vineyard near the old abbey of Montmajour, close to Arles, and painted the whole of this canvas in a single day. He told his brother Theo he had sweated blood and tears over it, but that he had got it. It was the turn of the season, the leaves going, and he was chasing the colour of the vines before it slipped away, here still mostly green, with figures stooping to the harvest and a few strollers off to one side. A month later he painted the same subject blazing red. That Red Vineyard is the one people say was the only picture he sold in his lifetime, which is not quite true.