Almond Blossoms (Van Gogh series)

Almond Blossom, 1890
Artist	Vincent van Gogh
Year	1890
Catalogue	F671 / JH1891
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	73.5 cm × 92 cm (28.9 in × 36 in)
Location	Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Almond Blossoms is from a group of several paintings made in 1888 and 1890 by Vincent van Gogh in Arles and Saint-Rémy, southern France of blossoming almond trees. Flowering trees were special to van Gogh. They represented awakening and hope. He enjoyed them aesthetically and found joy in painting flowering trees. The works reflect the influence of Impressionism, Divisionism, and Japanese woodcuts. Almond Blossom was made to celebrate the birth of his nephew and namesake, son of his brother Theo and sister-in-law Jo.

In 1888 van Gogh became inspired in southern France and began the most productive period of his painting career. In connection with their painting Farmhouse in Provence (1888), the National Gallery of Art notes that

"It was sun that van Gogh sought in Provence, a brilliance and light that would wash out detail and simplify forms, reducing the world around him to the sort of pattern he admired in Japanese woodblocks. Arles, he said, was "the Japan of the South." Here, he felt, the flattening effect of the sun would strengthen the outlines of compositions and reduce nuances of color to a few vivid contrasts. Pairs of complements—the red and green of the plants, the woven highlights of oranges and blue in the fence, even the pink clouds that enliven the turquoise sky — almost vibrate against each other."

When van Gogh arrived in Arles in March 1888 fruit trees in the orchards were about to bloom. The blossoms of the apricot, peach and plum trees motivated him, and within a month he had created fourteen paintings of blossoming fruit trees. Excited by the subject matter, van Gogh completed nearly one painting a day. Around April 21 he wrote to Theo, that he "will have to seek something new, now the orchards have almost finished blossoming."

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Wikipedia