Vincent discovered Montmajour, an abbey in ruins a few kilometres away from Arles as soon as he arrived in the town.
Though he wasn’t much interested in classical art or ruins ( there are almost no representations of monuments, churches or historic sites), Vincent greatly admired Montmajour and the plains which surrounded him: “ these vast countries tremendously appeal to me . It must be at least the fiftieth time I went to Montmajour to watch that flat area”. (…)
“ I walked there with someone who was not a painter and as I said to him: why, to me this is beautiful and endless like the sea, he answered –and he knew the sea-, “As for me , I like this more than the sea- because it’s also endless but here it is inhabited”? (…) this is what I would like to do, it’s the panorama the first drawings of which you have in your hands. It’s so wide, then it doesn’t turn to grey, it remains green until the last line- a blue line, the line of the hills.