The style

The blue-and-green style of this painting, which appears beautiful and luxurious, was often specially chosen to depict subjects of Daoist paradise, imperial parks, and past golden ages such as the Han (202 BCE-220 CE) and the Tang dynasties (618-907 CE).

The features

This work reveals many features of early narrative paintings in landscape settings from the Tang dynasty. The steep mountain forms are complex in structure, their surfaces filled with heavy washes of azurite, malachite, and ochre.

The clouds

White clouds encircle the mountains for a dramatic effect, while numerous peaks and hills are capped by lines of trees.

The trees

Even in the middle and foreground, which are clearly delineated, landscape forms are also embellished with vegetation and flowering trees.

The horses

Perhaps the most conspicuous aspect of this gorgeous landscape is the line of figures and horses making their way along the mountain path.

Pastoral beauty

"Auvers is very beautiful, among other things a lot of old thatched roofs, which are getting rare…for really it is profoundly beautiful, it is the real country, characteristic and picturesque," Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother and sister-in-law in 1890.

Green on green

The green shutters of these houses match the surrounding greens of bushes and trees, suggesting a rustic lifestyle in harmony with the natural world. You can still visit these houses on Rue de Gré in Auvers.

Impasto skies

Van Gogh's technique of thickly applied paint with visible brushstrokes is known as 'impasto'. Zooming in here, you can see how impasto has been used to give texture to a tree leaning into a heavy sky.