Almond Blossoms, Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh arrived in Arles during one of the harshest winters in years. We can imagine a gloomy, cold atmosphere, great snowdrifts piled up by the road, Vincent’s breath visible in a plume of vapour as he steps down from the train. But it is February, and in just a few weeks, Spring will begin to wake the earth and bring out the brilliant colours of the Provençal landscape. 

Vincent was 33 years old and was about to enter the most productive period of his life. In under fifteen months—just 444 days—he would produce more than 200 paintings of  “…landscapes, yellow—old gold—done quickly, quickly, quickly, and in a hurry just like the harvester who is silent under the blazing sun, intent only on the reaping.”  

Vincent had been living in Paris, meeting some of Montmartre’s most famous artists, including Claude Monet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and, most importantly, the avant-gardist, Paul Gauguin. However, the city life had taken its toll, and he had become tired and ill. He came to Provence in part for his health, hoping the mild climate would help him with a nasty drinking habit and smoker’s cough that he had developed in the hedonistic, busy environment of the French capital.

But Vincent had learnt a lot in Paris. From the Impressionist artists such as Monet or Morisot, his earlier Dutch style canvases, all in shades of brown, red and black, took on light airy hues of blues, greens and yellows. He had learnt the techniques of painting en plein air, or outdoors, directly from the landscape, rather than in a studio and of representing the transitory effects of light on colour. Finally, he developed a fascination with the arts and culture of Japan. Enchanted by their colours, mystique, and interesting, asymmetrical compositions, diagonal lines, and off-centre subjects, he had collected hundreds of Japanese prints.

To Vincent, Arles was ‘the Japan of the South’; Provence was considered at the time an exotic part of France. Here, the locals cooked with olive oil, they attended bullfights, and they spoke a dialect that was closer to Spanish than Parisian French. This was a land of romance, where peasants lived in close proximity to nature, tied deeply to the land and the changing seasons. A notion deeply attractive to the artist, whose spiritual beliefs had developed from the Christianity of his youth to a pantheism that believed in the spiritual force of nature, of the power of the rustling leaves, the changing seasons, the sunlight.

And he came here too for that brilliant Mediterranean light, which he hoped would give him the same clarity and brilliance as captured by the Japanese printmasters. Vincent believed that the strength of the light, washing out detail in colour and texture, allowed him to paint the vivid colour contrasts and strong outlines for which his work is famous. Among the clarity of light, the beautiful landscapes, the intense colours, he aimed to create a corpus that expressed his inner self and would, eventually, attract other artists, forming a new utopian community of creatives he would dub ‘the Studio of the South’.

This particular canvas was painted in 1890, but was part of a series of paintings of blossoms begun by Vincent almost immediately after his arrival. It is an almond blossom, the first to bloom in Arles. It’s a hopeful, delicate picture that expresses new beginnings, new hopes, and a new life. Now, as Vincent throws open his shutters and inhales their sweet fragrance, he too is making a new beginning and entering an exciting new phase of his career.