The pink peach tree

Painted in Arles in March 1888, this blossoming peach tree is among the first canvases Van Gogh completed after arriving in the south of France in February of that year. He wrote enthusiastically to Theo about the orchards coming into bloom, describing the delicate pinks and whites against the blue Provençal sky as extraordinary. He made a series of blossoming orchard paintings that spring, feeling he had arrived at something joyful and original. The series is dedicated to the memory of Anton Mauve, his Dutch painter cousin who had recently died. Now at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Delicate pink blossoms are painted with small, individual strokes that create a vibrant pointillist-like texture across the canopy. The pale sky is built up in thin, cool washes. A defining feature is the strong diagonal line of a reed fence anchoring the composition — a device borrowed from Japanese woodblock prints that Van Gogh had been studying intensively.