Vincent van Gogh
1889
Oil paint on canvas
65 x 84.3 cm
Vincent van Gogh captured this view of an open plain outside Arles in early spring 1889. He wrote to his brother that the blossoms and the distant snow-capped mountain reminded him of the cherry trees and Mount Fuji in the Japanese prints he collected and greatly admired. Van Gogh had moved to the south of France a year earlier, hoping that the Provençal light and landscape would inspire his art.
The scene is rendered with a great variety of brushstrokes, from thick dots of paint for the blossoms to long streaks for the mountains.