The white orchard

Van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888 and found snow on the ground. Within a few weeks the fruit trees around the town were in flower, and blossom in Provence holds for a fortnight or so, which is why he worked at the pace he did: roughly 14 orchard canvases in April alone. The plum trees here had not been pruned in years, and that is what makes the branches run so long and tangled. Van Gogh had a liking for trees left to themselves. He was also thinking in sets rather than single pictures, writing to Paris in mid-April about hanging one vertical canvas between two horizontal ones and hoping to reach a group of nine. Early in May he sent the orchards north to Paris in a single batch.