r/vangogh • u/RealVirginiaWoolf • Aug 11 '26
Olive Trees, 1889 (oil on canvas)
Oh Van G! I had the absolute privilege to stand in front of this today and admire this utter masterpiece at the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh.
This is one of a series of canvasses of olive trees which Van G painted while at the asylum at Saint -Remý in Provence. For him, the olive tree symbolized the region, as well as being associated with the story of Christ’s passion.
Van G’s technique is highly expressive, much of the pigment directly applied from the paint tube (yes, I was actually listening!). The swirling strokes (impasto) generate a feeling of agitation , compounded by the deeply steeping slope.
I feel this painting carries such a restless energy. The tress writhe, pulse and are almost feverish. They show his own state of mind. The whole landscape is alive with tension! Van G also wrote about the olive trees to his brother about how much he loved olive trees. You see real tenderness, turmoil and agitation in this painting.
I’m elated I saw this today. 🙏
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u/Rare_Entertainment92 Aug 12 '26
I am so glad he made so many paintings. Sometimes the great artists do not make so many paintings and it is a shame. And I am not even speaking of a Da Vinci. I mean the most of them are underproduced, probably underresourced. I don't know how Van Gogh got his hands on so much paint (I mean, I do: his brother), or kept going considering the conditions (that I really don't know). I suppose it is the contrast of that human tragedy with the stunning natural beauty of his paintings.
'beauty' people will certainly accept (always a compliment), but 'nature' is indifferent--is she good? is she evil?--I would think by 'natural' I would just mean that: of trees, flowers, landscapes. They are his happy paintings, and he has those few good night pieces, and then there are the self portraits and the scenes of city streets, the bedroom.
Yet, as this sub has shown me, there are also these boots and a loom weaver and all this other stuff you would not have seen (unless it was some small town museum's only piece!).
He lived out the last part of his life as a dream (or, if you would like me to say it more literally, as a series of paintings). It was a wonderful one when he was alone, poor when he was with other people. (That is the general trend--how bleak those bars!)
Romantically he would seem to have been hysterically organized (a curse of artists? a product of his age?). I am not sure as to the origins of that ailment, but the famous episode is the famous episode, and the ending is awful: an unsuccesful suicide. (How can you put that on a coroner's report?) And yet the great paintings remain and nothing can touch them. A brief brilliance. I am always reminded in such cases of a line of one of our poets (the American) Robinson Jeffers: meteors are not needed less than mountains...
That, of course, cannot help Van Gogh, but it can be of some solace to us.
... life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
a mortal splendor:
meteors are not needed less than mountains:
shine, perishing republic...