Olive Trees

Olive Trees at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, dated to June 1889, is among the earliest paintings in the series begun when Van Gogh first arrived at Saint-Rémy and found the grove directly accessible from the asylum grounds. This early version has a somewhat different character from the later, more turbulent canvases — the trees are depicted with a degree of naturalistic observation that the later works replace with increasingly charged expressive distortion. The Metropolitan holds this alongside Women Picking Olives, making it possible to trace the series' development over the course of 1889.

The relatively early date within the series is apparent in the more ordered, less agitated brushwork — foliage is rendered with shorter, more contained strokes than the swirling marks of the late-year canvases. The warm golden-ochre ground beneath the trees gives the painting a sunlit quality characteristic of the Provençal summer.