Der Maulbeerbaum

Van Gogh painted this in October 1889, from inside the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole at Saint-Remy, where he had committed himself after the breakdown in Arles. Between his worst spells he was allowed out to work, and that autumn he seized the good weather. A single mulberry tree fills the canvas, its foliage blazing yellow and orange against a hard blue Provencal sky, the paint pushed on so thickly it almost stands off the surface. He wrote to his brother Theo that of all his autumn studies this yellow tree against the blue was the best one. The pale rock at its base is the limestone of the Alpilles hills just outside the walls, the same ground he crossed on his supervised walks.