View of Arles, Flowering Orchards
The skyline of Arles beyond a fence and a mass of spring blossom — one of the orchard pictures Van Gogh raced to finish in April 1888.
Arles
The painting depicts a real landscape or cityscape. The precise viewpoint the artist used may be unknown, so the marker shows the general area.
View of Arles, Flowering Orchards — at a glance
- Artist
- Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)
- Year
- 1888
- Movement
- Post-Impressionism
- Place
- The orchards outside Arles, Provence, France
- Viewpoint
- Market gardens on the town edge, looking to the skyline — town profile survives; orchards built over
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 72 × 92 cm
- Now at
- Neue Pinakothek, Munich
Overview
This is one of the group of about fourteen orchard paintings Vincent van Gogh made in the space of a few weeks in the spring of 1888, when the fruit trees around Arles came into blossom all at once. It looks across a foreground of flowering trees, a reed fence and a ditch of blue water to the town of Arles, its ramparts, church towers and rooftops laid out along the horizon under a fresh sky. It is oil on canvas, about 72 by 92 cm, and it hangs in the Neue Pinakothek, Munich.
The story behind the painting
Artist's own account Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo of working ‘in a frenzy’ during the short blossom season, going out each day to a different orchard before the petals fell. The orchard series was his celebration of arriving in the south and of spring after a hard Paris winter.
Where was View of Arles, Flowering Orchards painted?
Scholarship Van Gogh painted this from the small-holdings and orchards on the edge of Arles, in the Rhône delta of Provence, looking back towards the walled town. Arles keeps its Roman and medieval monuments and much of its skyline; the immediate orchards and market gardens have largely been built over, so the town profile can be matched but the flowering foreground is gone.
What is in the painting?
The lower half is a band of orchard: small trees heavy with white and pink blossom, a low woven reed fence, cypresses, and a straight ditch of bright blue water crossing the middle ground. Beyond, a strip of green field, then the pale mass of Arles — walls, gables, two or three towers — along a low horizon, with a wide, lightly clouded sky above.
Look closely
The blue ditch
A straight channel of vivid blue water crosses the middle ground, dividing orchard from town.
The reed fence
A low woven fence of reeds runs along the front of the orchard.
The town skyline
The pale walls, gables and towers of Arles lie along a low horizon.
The stippled blossom
White and pink flowers laid on in thick separate dabs, against the smoother sky.
Analysis
Composition and technique
A blossoming foreground and a straight blue ditch set against the long low line of the town.
Scholarship Van Gogh contrasts the busy, dabbed texture of blossom and fence in front with the flat, simple band of the distant town, using the horizontal ditch and fence to divide near from far. The brushwork ranges from thick stippled blossom to smooth strokes in the sky.
Colour and light
White and pink blossom and a vivid blue ditch against pale ochre town walls and a light sky.
The key contrast is the blue of the water and the warm off-white of the blossom and the town; Van Gogh keeps the whole picture high and clear, the light of a bright Provençal spring day.
History & provenance
The painting entered the Bavarian State Painting Collections and hangs in the Neue Pinakothek, Munich.
Sources
- Neue Pinakothek / Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich — collection entry for Vincent van Gogh, ‘View of Arles with Trees in Blossom’ (1888)
- ‘Vincent van Gogh: The Letters’ (Van Gogh Museum) — the orchard series, spring 1888
Related paintings
More by Vincent van Gogh
Café Terrace at Night
The Church at Auvers
Starry Night Over the Rhone
Agostina Segatori Sitting in the Café du Tambourin
Also connected to Arles
Café Terrace at Night
Landscape with Snow
Les Alyscamps
