This painting was done at Saint-Remy under the impact of the southern sunlight, which had such a liberating effect on VanGogh’s art. To his brother Theo he had written ecstatically upon his first contact with the south, “Behold the kingdom of light! How wonderful is the golden sun!” The south inspired countless landscapes, none more rhapsodic than this one. VanGogh’s lyrical brush sweeps up nature in the rhythm of his own powerful emotion until field, trees, mountains ,and clouds become almost abstract, free flowing forms. These coiling and fantastic shapes suggest how far Vincent’s stormy feelings carried him beyond the relatively impersonal commentaries on nature which the Impressionists painted.