Olive Grove Pale Blue Sky

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Olive Grove Pale Blue Sky: Vincent van Gogh

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Vincent van Gogh Oil Painting - Olive Grove Pale Blue Sky

Keywords: Olive, Grove, Pale, Blue, Sky

Work Overview: Olive Grove - Pale Blue Sky
Vincent van Gogh
Date: 1889; Saint-rémy-de-provence, France *
Style: Post-Impressionism
Genre: landscape
Media: oil, canvas
Dimensions: 92.1 x 72.7 cm
Location: Private Collection

Vincent van Gogh painted at least 18 paintings of olive trees.
In May 1889, Van Gogh voluntarily entered the asylum[3] of St. Paul[4] near Saint-Rémy in Provence.[5] There he had access to an adjacent cell he used as his studio. He was initially confined to the immediate asylum grounds and painted (without the window bars) the world he saw from his room, such as ivy covered trees, lilacs, and irises in the garden.[3][6] As he ventured outside of the asylum walls, he painted the wheat fields, olive groves, and cypress trees in the surrounding countryside,[6] which he saw as "characteristic of Provence." Over the course of the year, he painted about 150 canvases.[3]

The imposed regimen of asylum life gave van Gogh a hard-won stability: "I feel happier here with my work than I could be outside. By staying here a good long time, I shall have learned regular habits and in the long run the result will be more order in my life."[6] While his time at Saint-Rémy forced him to manage his vices, such as coffee, alcohol, poor eating habits and periodic attempts to consume turpentine and paint, his stay was not ideal. He needed to obtain permission to leave the asylum grounds. The food was poor; he generally ate only bread and soup. His only apparent form of treatment were two-hour baths twice a week. During his year there, van Gogh had periodic attacks, possibly due to a form of epilepsy.[7] By early 1890, when the attacks worsened, he concluded that his stay at the asylum was not helping him to recover, which led him to move to Auvers-sur-Oise just north of Paris in May 1890.

Painting the countryside, the surrounding fields, cypress trees and olive trees restored van Gogh's connection to nature through art.[9] He completed at least 18 paintings in 1889[10] of "venerable, gnarled olive trees," pervasive throughout southern France,[11] of which he wrote:

Olive Trees in Provence, France
"The effect of daylight and the sky means there are endless subjects to be found in olive trees. For myself I look for the contrasting effects in the foliage, which changes with the tones of the sky. At times, when the tree bares its pale blossoms and big blue flies, emerald fruit beetles and cicadas in great numbers fly about, everything is immersed in pure blue. Then, as the bronzer foliage takes on more mature tones, the sky is radiant and streaked with green and orange, and then again, further into autumn, the leaves take on violet tones something of the color of a ripe fig, and this violet effect manifests itself most fully with the contrast of the large, whitening sun within its pale halo of light lemon. Sometimes, too, after a shower I've seen the whole sky pink and orange, which gave an exquisite value and coloring to the silvery gray-greens. And among all this were women, also pink, who were gathering the fruit."[12]
He found olive trees, representative of Provence, both "demanding and compelling." He wrote to his brother Theo that he was "struggling to catch (the olive trees). They are old silver, sometimes with more blue in them, sometimes greenish, bronzed, fading white above a soil which is yellow, pink, violet tinted orange... very difficult." He found that the "rustle of the olive grove has something very secret in it, and immensely old. It is too beautiful for us to dare to paint it or to be able to imagine it."

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Vincent van Gogh

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