Two women stand closely together at the left, their heads covered in patterned shawls of blue and red, surrounded by yellow and white flowers that fill the foreground. One woman holds a red parasol, her face turned in profile with a subtle smile, while the other looks downward, her expression more somber and her features tinged with green. To their right, a third figure bends deeply over the flowerbeds, her back to the viewer, hands reaching into the blossoms as she tends the garden.

The garden path curves in a bright ochre arc from the lower right to the upper background, bordered by a pale edge and leading the eye toward rounded flowerbeds that punctuate the distance with rings of red and green. Dense, upright greenery rises behind the women, rendered in thick, directional brushstrokes of blue and green that contrast with the pointillist dots of the figures’ garments. The light is diffuse, with no strong shadows, and the colors are vivid and unnatural: faces are greenish, flowers are outlined in blue, and the earth is a patchwork of orange and yellow.

Every surface is animated by visible, energetic brushwork, from the stippled dots on the women’s shawls to the swirling marks in the grass and sky. The composition is tightly cropped, pressing the figures into the foreground and giving the scene an intimate, almost dreamlike quality. The upper left corner is filled with dense, swirling blue and green foliage that creates a textured backdrop behind the standing women.

The lower right corner is crowded with overlapping strokes of orange, yellow, and green, blending the garden path into the flowerbeds. The lightest area falls on the white flowers and the cap of the bending figure, drawing attention to these points amid the saturated colors. Short, curved brushstrokes define the rounded flowerbeds in the background, each encircled by a green border and filled with dots of red, white, and blue paint. Memory of the Garden at Etten was painted by Vincent van Gogh in Arles in November 1888.