Olive Pickers

Van Gogh painted three versions of women picking olives. This is chronologically the last one that the artist painted in his studio in December in a "very discreet color scheme". Although the subject of the painting is immediately clear, the first tree, like a stepping stone, leads the spectator into the scene. Here Van Gogh was more concerned about emotional and spiritual reality than literal interpretation. The women harvest olives for sustenance. The way in which the trees seem to wrap around the women and the landscape, almost as one, indicates an emotional bond and interdependence between nature and people.