The Pink Orchard

Van Gogh reached Arles in the south of France in February 1888 and found the place still under winter. When the fruit trees came out a few weeks later he worked against the clock, because blossom does not wait: 14 canvases of orchards in flower inside a month. Standing several of them side by side gave him a further idea, borrowed from the Japanese prints he collected, and on 13 April he drew the arrangement in a letter to his brother Theo, three of the orchards hung together as one, with this one as a wing. He expected pictures like these to sell, on the grounds that blossom cheers everybody up. The colour has shifted since. For the pink he used a red lake made from cochineal insects, a pigment that loses its strength in daylight, so the flowers are paler now than the ones he painted in April 1888.