Orchard in Blossom, 1888 by Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh painted Orchard in Blossom in April, 1888. In his letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh wrote:

At the moment I'm captivated by the fruit trees in blossom: pink peach trees, white-yellow pear trees. There's no system to my brushstrokes. I strike the canvas with uneven touches and leave them just as they are.

Patches of thickly applied color, some areas where the canvas is left uncovered, others left completely unfinished, some retouching, some brusqueness; in fact, I'm inclined to believe that the result may be rather disturbing and irritating and not at all pleasing to people with preconceived and fixed ideas about technique.

While still working directly on site, I try to capture the essential in my drawing - then I fill in the spaces, defining them with outlines, some expressed, some not, but in every case felt; I fill these with tones that are also simplified, so that everything that is soil will share the same violet tone, the whole of the sky will have a blue tonality, and the vegetation will be either green-blue or else green-yellow, purposely exaggerating the yellow or blue qualities in this case.