Autumn Landscape, 1885 by Vincent Van Gogh

Autumn Landscape was done in October 1885, and the following month Van Gogh left Nuenen and traveled to Antwerp, By this time he had been ostracized by the local people of Nuenen, who falsely believed him to be responsible for a peasant girl's illegitimate pregnancy, and the local clergy were advising people to stay away from him. As a consequence he had run out of models to paint, and so turned towards still life pictures and landscapes.

Autumn Landscape reflects his increasing use of colour, a factor that would truly manifest itself after his arrival in Paris. He has painted the ground as a flat area of colour from which the spindly trees rise up. The junction of the tree to the ground is rather unnatural, but the trees themselves are fluently pointed and realistic, and the sense of distance created through the long avenue of trees is convincing. He has included wheeling birds in the sky, which was a motif that he frequently used and that on occasion suggested a threatening or uneasy presence, though this is not the case here.