Peach Trees in Blossom

Van Gogh's Peach Trees in Blossom, painted at Arles in 1889 and now at the Courtauld Gallery, belongs to the series of orchard subjects that absorbed him in the spring of that year. The blossoming peach was for him the quintessential southern tree — its brief, brilliant flowering a symbol of life's intensity and transience. He painted these orchards at a moment of relative stability between crisis periods at the asylum, finding in nature's seasonal renewal a kind of hope. The Courtauld Gallery's acquisition gives this work a prominent place in London's finest French Impressionist collection.

The flowering branches are rendered with a delicate, precise touch that captures the lightness and fragility of spring blossom. Van Gogh's palette is at its most optimistic in these orchard paintings — high-keyed pinks and whites against blue sky. The brushwork on the flowers is quick and light, contrasting with the more deliberate rendering of the tree's darker branches.