The Olive Trees by Vincent Van Gogh

The Olive Trees by Vincent Van Gogh, oil on canvas 1889, is a landscape painting of the gnarled forms of an olive orchard aggressively growing from the swirling forms of hilly, sandy soil against a background of undulating hills under a dark blue sky and eerie, flattened white clouds. Painted in thick brushstrokes of brilliant, impasto oil paints, the picture captures the forms and movements of trees, landscape and sky with thick, dark outlines that follow the contours of expressionistic, undulating forms. Van Gogh painted a series of olive trees while undergoing treatment at the asylum in Saint Remy, in the Provence region of the south of France, and this version is a companion piece to his famous Starry Night painting. The painting reveals the expressive power of the artist before nature that developed in the mature, Post-Impressionist that Van Gogh created in the final years of his life.