Story Ore Blog: cherry tree drawing in blossom

Sunday, October 16, 2011

cherry tree drawing in blossom

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Flowering trees were special to Van Gogh. They represented awakening and hope. He enjoyed them aesthetically and found joy in painting flowering trees. The 'trees and orchards in bloom' paintings Van Gogh made reflect Impressionist, Divisionist and Japanese woodcut influences.

When Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888 fruit trees in the orchards were about to bloom. The blossoms of the apricot, peach and plum trees motivated him, and within a month he had created fourteen paintings of blossoming fruit trees. Excited by the subject matter, Van Gogh completed nearly one painting a day. Around April 21 Van Gogh wrote to Theo, that he "will have to seek something new, now the orchards have almost finished blossoming."

"In his flowering trees, Vincent attained a sense of spontaneity, freeing himself from the strict self-analytical approach he took in Paris. In Almond Tree in Blossom, Vincent used the light, broken strokes of impressionism and the dabs of colour of divisionism for a sparkling surface effect. The distinctive contours of the tree and its position in the foreground recall the formal qualities of Japanese prints."

Van Gogh may have envisioned several triptychs of his paintings of orchards and flowering trees. There is, though, only one documented and sketched triptych grouping, one which Van Gogh thought of for Theo's apartment. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger displayed them in the apartment according to Van Gogh's sketch, the vertical Pink Peach Tree between the Pink Orchard and the White Orchard.