Apricot Trees in Blossom

Van Gogh's Apricot Trees in Blossom from 1888 belongs to the series of orchard paintings he made in the spring at Arles — his first spring in the south, which moved him with its extraordinary flowering. The apricot tree, slightly earlier to bloom than the peach, offered him pink-white blossom against bare branches and the specific blue of an early Provençal spring sky. He dedicated several of these orchard paintings to the memory of Anton Mauve, and they carry a quality of grateful homage to the Dutch landscape painter who first encouraged him. The work is currently in a private collection.

The apricot blossoms are rendered with delicate, quick strokes that capture the lightness and fragility of early spring flowering. Van Gogh's evolving Arles palette at this moment is relatively cool — the pinks and whites of blossom, the pale blues of the sky — before the full warm intensity of the southern summer develops. Bare branches provide dark structural contrast to the delicate flowers.