In his landscape motifs from Arles Gauguin paints natural shapes as decorative fields in bright colours. The artist is rendering the countryside according to his inner vision instead of trying to depict it. In October 1888 Gauguin arrived in Arles in the south of France, where Vincent van Gogh was already staying. During the autumn the two artists lived and worked together. Tensions arose between them and the episode came to a dramatic end when, after a violent quarrel, van Gogh cut off a piece of his ear.