Olive Trees on a Hillside

Olive Trees on a Hillside, also at the Van Gogh Museum and from the same 1889 Saint-Rémy period, shows the olive groves on the slopes surrounding the asylum from a different vantage point. Van Gogh was producing multiple versions of the same subjects simultaneously, exploring the same motif under different conditions and from different angles — a practice that anticipated Monet's famous series paintings of the 1890s. The hillside composition adds the undulating terrain of the Alpilles foothills to the familiar olive tree subject, giving the painting a greater sense of topography than the more isolated tree compositions.

The hillside slope is painted with vigorous, sweeping strokes that follow the contour of the ground — a technique Van Gogh developed to suggest the physical force of landscape. The olive trees on the slope are handled with his characteristic short, curved marks that describe foliage as rhythmic pattern rather than botanical fact.