Orchard in Blossom

Van Gogh reached Arles in February 1888 and found the south under snow. Then the fruit trees around the town came into flower, and through a few weeks in April he worked at a pace he called a fever, because blossom lasts days rather than weeks. Around 14 orchard canvases came out of that spring, painted one after another, now and then two in a day. This upright canvas is one of them, about 72 centimetres tall. He was out from morning until evening, and he wrote to Theo about fighting the mistral, the cold wind that runs down the Rhône valley, by driving stakes into the ground to hold his easel still.