Autumn Landscape was done in October 1885, by Van Gogh while he was in Nuenen before traveling to Antwerp. While Van Gogh was in Nuenen he had turned towards painting still life pictures and landscapes. The Autumn Landscape painting reflects his increasing use of colour, a factor that would truly manifest itself after his arrival in Paris. He has painted the ground as a flat area of colour from which the spindly trees rise up. The junction of the tree to the ground is rather unnatural, but the trees themselves are fluently pointed and realistic, and the sense of distance created through the long avenue of trees is convincing. He has included wheeling birds in the sky, which was a motif that he frequently used and that on occasion suggested a threatening or uneasy presence, though this is not the case here.
