Les Alyscamps: Falling Autumn Leaves

Van Gogh painted this in the autumn of 1888, in the first weeks after Gauguin arrived to share the Yellow House in Arles. The two men went out to work side by side, and one of the spots they chose was Les Alyscamps, an ancient Roman burial ground on the edge of town, a long avenue of old tombs and poplars leading to a chapel. Van Gogh set his easel high and looked straight down the alley, with no sky and the trees pushed right to the front, an idea he took from the Japanese prints he loved. The trunks were painted a deep purple. The red he mixed into that colour has faded over the years, so today they read as blue, while the leaves come down in flecks of orange over the two figures walking below.