Since moving to the south of France in 1888, Van Gogh frequently painted this image of a plain outside Arles. Everything is small there, even the mountains, like in some Japanese landscapes, which is why the subject appealed to me, he wrote to the painter Paul Signac. The snow-capped peak creates a serene ambiance to the right (a deliberate echo of Mount Fuji in Japan) and the in-bloom trees. Nonetheless, the crooked figure to the left emphasizes that this is a man-made scene.
