Orchard with Blossoming Apricot Trees

Vincent van Gogh

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Keywords: OrchardBlossomingApricotTrees

Work Overview

The Pink Orchard also Orchard with Blossoming Apricot Trees
Vincent van Gogh
Date: 1888; Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône, France *
Style: Post-Impressionism
Genre: landscape
Media: oil, canvas
Dimensions: 80.5 x 65.5 cm
Location: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands


Van Gogh may have envisioned several triptychs of his paintings of orchards and flowering trees. However, only one triptych grouping has been documented, one which Vincent envisioned and sketched for Theo's apartment. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger displayed them in the apartment according to Van Gogh's sketch, the vertical Pink Peach Tree between the Pink Orchard and the White Orchard.[10][11][12]


In Paris, Van Gogh had learned to paint more than what one sees, but what it should be. He felt Pink Orchard was an example of wise use of that technique, such as leaving a field blank behind the orchard to create the feeling of distance. The way in which he outlined the bark of the tree indicates influence of the Japanese prints that he greatly admired. Using an Impressionist technique of placing colors side by side, Van Gogh makes short dots or brush strokes of colors to represent grass. On the top of the tree he uses rougher, more impasto brushstrokes to represent the colorful blossoms.[12] Vincent asked Theo to "shave off" some of the impasto in this painting. Apparently he did not reline, a process of heavy pressure and heat to flatten the surface, because sharp edges of thick impasto remain on the canvas.