Il pesco rosa

Van Gogh reached Arles, in the south of France, in February 1888, hoping its strong light would do for him what it had done for the Japanese printmakers he admired. Within weeks the fruit trees around the town burst into blossom, and he threw himself at them, painting almost every day to catch a bloom that would not last. He made around a dozen of these orchard pictures in a single spring. The soft pink of a peach tree in flower was just the kind of colour his Paris years had taught him to trust. He worked fast, before the wind or the falling petals could end the show, and by the time it was over he had a whole series to send north to Theo.