Olive Trees

This painting is one of five views of olive orchards that Vincent van Gogh produced in November 1889. Executed directly from nature yet enlivened by Seurat-like stippling and passages of stylized, broken color, the series reflects Van Gogh’s response to recent works by Paul Gauguin and Émile Bernard. Describing his own approach as a deliberately harsh and coarse realism set against their abstractions, Van Gogh emphasized its intended effect, a painting that would retain a distinctly rustic character and, as he put it, “smell of the soil.”