The White Orchard

Vincent van Gogh

Contemporary-Art.org
Keywords: WhiteOrchard

Work Overview

The White Orchard
Orchard with Blossoming Plum Trees
Vincent van Gogh
Date: 1888; Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône, France *
Style: Post-Impressionism
Genre: landscape
Media: oil, canvas
Dimensions: 80 x 60 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.
Continuing on with his paintings of orchards, Van Gogh wrote, "At the moment I am working on some plum trees, yellowish-white, with thousands of black branches."[15] Two days later he wrote of the same painting, "This morning I worked on an orchard of plum trees in bloom; all at once a fierce wind sprang up, an effect I had seen nowhere else but here, and returned at intervals. The sun shone in between, and all the little white flowers sparkled. It was so lovely. My friend the Dane came to join me, and I went on painting at the risk and peril of seeing the whole show on the ground at any moment - it's a white effect with a good deal of yellow in it, and blue and lilac, the sky white and blue."