Women hunch over an autumnal bacchanal of color in the foreground of Vincent van Gogh’s The Red Vineyards near Arles. It is the harvest season and the leaves on the vines riot in spasms of color and light as a last hurrah before they brown and depart the stems that held them up, that gave them life. To the right, a creek meanders past, reflecting the evanescent glow of the setting sun. A mysterious figure backlit by the evening sky’s luminescence wades in the creek apart from the grape pickers, staring straight out of the painting, ominously responding to our gaze. I cannot help but think that in this vibrant scene of decline the figure must be death manifest, standing in the river of time, waiting for us to transport our aging selves from our august lives to the great beyond. 

On the 4th of August, 1977, not far from where Van Gogh painted this landscape, Jean Louise Calment took her final breath. She was 122 years old. When she was younger, she recalled meeting van Gogh during this productive period of his life, but he failed to charm her. She thought he was a rude drunk. She bicycled around Arles until she was 100. She ate two pounds of chocolate a week. When she was 117, she finally gave up cigarettes and her daily glass of port. 

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