Almond Blossoms (Van Gogh series)
Encyclopedia
Almond Blossoms is a group of several paintings made in 1888 and 1890 by Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...

 in Arles
Arles
Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....

 and Saint-Rémy
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France.-Geography:...

, southern France
Southern France
Southern France , colloquially known as le Midi is defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Gironde, Spain, the Mediterranean, and Italy...

 of blossoming almond
Almond
The almond , is a species of tree native to the Middle East and South Asia. Almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree...

 trees. Flowering trees were special to Van Gogh. They represented awakening and hope. He enjoyed them aesthetically and found joy in painting flowering trees. The works reflect Impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

, Divisionist
Divisionism
Divisionism was the characteristic style in Neo-Impressionist painting defined by the separation of colors into individual dots or patches which interacted optically....

 and Japanese
Japanese art
Japanese art covers a wide range of art styles and media, including ancient pottery, sculpture in wood and bronze, ink painting on silk and paper and more recently manga, cartoon, along with a myriad of other types of works of art...

 woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

 influences. Almond Blossoms was made to celebrate the birth of his nephew and namesake, son of his brother Theo
Theo van Gogh (art dealer)
Theodorus "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch art dealer. He was the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh, and Theo's unfailing financial and emotional support allowed his brother to devote himself entirely to painting...

 and sister-in-law Jo
Johanna van Gogh-Bonger
Johanna Gezina van Gogh-Bonger was the wife of Theo van Gogh, art dealer, and the sister-in-law of the painter Vincent van Gogh. After the death of Vincent and her husband she worked assiduously on editing the brothers' correspondence, producing the first volume in Dutch in 1914...

.

Southern France

In 1888, Van Gogh became inspired in southern France and began the most productive period of his painting career. From the National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...

's "Effects of the Sun in Provence,"
"It was sun that Van Gogh sought in Provence, a brilliance and light that would wash out detail and simplify forms,
reducing the world around him to the sort of pattern he admired in Japanese woodblocks. Arles, he said, was "the Japan of the South." Here, he felt, the flattening effect of the sun would strengthen the outlines of compositions and reduce nuances of color to a few vivid contrasts. Pairs of complements—the red and green of the plants, the woven highlights of oranges and blue in the fence, even the pink clouds that enliven the turquoise sky — almost vibrate against each other."


When Van Gogh arrived in Arles in March of 1888 fruit trees
Fruit tree
A fruit tree is a tree which bears fruit that is consumed or used by people — all trees that are flowering plants produce fruit, which are the ripened ovaries of flowers containing one or more seeds. In horticultural usage, the term 'fruit tree' is limited to those that provide fruit for...

 in the orchards were about to bloom. The blossoms of the apricot, peach and plum trees motivated him, and within a month he had created fourteen paintings of blossoming fruit trees. Excited by the subject matter, Van Gogh completed nearly one painting a day.Around April 21 Van Gogh wrote to Theo
Theo van Gogh (art dealer)
Theodorus "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch art dealer. He was the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh, and Theo's unfailing financial and emotional support allowed his brother to devote himself entirely to painting...

, that he "will have to seek something new, now the orchards have almost finished blossoming."

Van Gogh's work reflected his interest in Japanese wood block
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

 prints. Hiroshige's Japonaiserie Flowering Plum Tree
Japonaiserie (van Gogh)
Japonaiserie was the term the Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh used to express the influence of Japanese art.Before 1854 trade with Japan was confined to a Dutch monopoly and Japanese goods imported into Europe were for the most part confined to porcelain and lacquer ware...

demonstrates portrayal of beautiful subject matter with flat patterns of colors and no shadow. Van Gogh collected hundreds of Japanese prints and likened the works of the great Japanese artists, like Hiroshige, to those of Rembrandt, Hals
Frans Hals
Frans Hals was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork, and helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals was also instrumental in the evolution of 17th century group portraiture.-Biography:Hals was born in 1580 or 1581, in Antwerp...

, and Vermeer
Johannes Vermeer
Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer was a Dutch painter who specialized in exquisite, domestic interior scenes of middle class life. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime...

. Hiroshige
Hiroshige
was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, and one of the last great artists in that tradition. He was also referred to as Andō Hiroshige and by the art name of Ichiyūsai Hiroshige ....

 was one of the last great masters of the Japanese wood block
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

 genre called Ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e
' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...

. Van Gogh integrated some of the technical aspects of ukiyo-e into his work as his two 1887 homages to Hiroshige demonstrates.

The Japanese paintings represent Van Gogh's search for serenity, which he describes in a letter to his sister, "Having as much of this serenity as possible, even though one knows little – nothing – for certain, is perhaps a better remedy for all diseases than all the things that are sold at the chemist's shop." The southern region and the flowering trees seems to awakened Van Gogh from his doldrums into a state of clear direction, hyper-activity and good cheer. He wrote, "I am up to my ears in work for the trees are in blossom and I want to paint a Provençal orchard of astonishing gaiety." While in the past a very active period would have drained him, this time he was invigorated.

Blossoming Almond Branch in a Glass

Although fruit trees
Fruit tree
A fruit tree is a tree which bears fruit that is consumed or used by people — all trees that are flowering plants produce fruit, which are the ripened ovaries of flowers containing one or more seeds. In horticultural usage, the term 'fruit tree' is limited to those that provide fruit for...

 were about to bloom when Vincent arrived in Arles, the town had just received a layer of snow, driving Van Gogh inside for his first week in Arles were he worked on still life, such as a branch from an almond tree. To reflect the early signs of spring, he used delicate brushstrokes and pastel shades for Blossoming Almond Branch in a Glass.

In "Art Inspiring Transmutations of Life", Bruce Ross evaluates the Impressionist's
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

 effect on Van Gogh's work,
"Van Gogh’s bright Sprig of Flowering Almond in a Glass embodies these streams* while exploring Japanese aesthetic values. A broken-off sprig is set in a simple glass. The sprig is highlighted by a red line along the beige wall and lavish empty space. There is no formal decorative intent. Van Gogh’s name, also in bright red, hovers above a sprig in the upper left as if a symbol of hope. Van Gogh has transformed the still life with the help of these values. He has imbued a form predicated on death to one focused on life and possibility. His use of bright color reflects this. There is an individual, and hence essential, character to his subject, a sprig of almond buds and opening blossoms. This still life resembles the Japanese art of flower arrangement, ikebana
Ikebana
is the Japanese art of flower arrangement, also known as .-Etymology:"Ikebana" is from the Japanese and . Possible translations include "giving life to flowers" and "arranging flowers".- Approach :...

, in its simplicity and evoked hopefulness as well as in its formal use of empty space."


* These streams include: 1) French impressionist's practice of using unadorned objects from life and 2) use of space between objects as objects themselves to the point of over-orchestration.


Blossoming Almond Branch in a Glass with a Book

Van Gogh wrote to his brother, "Down here it is freezing hard and there is still snow in the countryside," and he has "two small studies of an almond-tree branch already in flower in spite of it." The two studies are Blossoming Almond Branch in a Glass and Blossoming Almond Branch in a Glass with a Book.

Almond Tree in Blossom

Van Gogh writes of the weather and that the almond trees are coming into full flower, "The weather here is changeable, often windy with turbulent skies, but the almond trees are beginning to flower everywhere."

Mancoff says of flowering trees and this work,
"In his flowering trees, Vincent attained a sense of spontaneity, freeing himself from the strict self-analytical approach he took in Paris. In Almond Tree in Blossom, Vincent used the light, broken strokes of impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

 and the dabs of colour of divisionism
Divisionism
Divisionism was the characteristic style in Neo-Impressionist painting defined by the separation of colors into individual dots or patches which interacted optically....

 for a sparkling surface effect. The distinctive contours of the tree and its position in the foreground recall the formal qualities of Japanese prints."


The rendering of Almond Tree in Blossom is positioned close and accessible to the viewer and the branches appear to reach out beyond the paintings frame. A yellow butterfly flies among the pink blossoms that growing on the red branches. The subject is reminiscent of an earlier painting Van Gogh made in Paris depicting flowering trees.

Almond Blossoms

Theo wrote to his brother Vincent on January 31, 1890 to announce the birth of his son, Vincent Willem Van Gogh. As a means of celebration, Van Gogh began work on a painting for Theo and his wife. He was very close to his brother and he sought to symbolize new life in the flowers of the almond tree for the birth of baby Vincent.

Van Gogh wrote to his mother of the birth of Theo and Jo's
Johanna van Gogh-Bonger
Johanna Gezina van Gogh-Bonger was the wife of Theo van Gogh, art dealer, and the sister-in-law of the painter Vincent van Gogh. After the death of Vincent and her husband she worked assiduously on editing the brothers' correspondence, producing the first volume in Dutch in 1914...

 baby,
"How glad I was when the news came... I should have greatly preferred him to call the boy after Father, of whom I have been thinking so much these days, instead of after me; but seeing it has now been done, I started right away to make a picture for him, to hang in their bedroom, big branches of white almond blossom against a blue sky."


The composition is unlike any other of Van Gogh's paintings. The branches of the almond tree seem to float against the blue sky and fill the picture plane. The close-up of the branches brings to mind Delacroix
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...

's proposition that "even a part of a thing is kind of a complete entity in itself." Dark lines outline the branches, similar to work Van Gogh has enjoyed in Japanese prints, such as floral studies that depict of a portion of a stalk of bamboo in an empty space. The bright color is reflective of the paintings made in Arles and the transformational work Van Gogh had on the still life genre.
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