Van Gogh’s Olive Trees
In 1889, recovering at the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Vincent van Gogh painted the olive trees outside his window over and over. He made around fifteen canvases of them in a single year — some of the most searching work of his life, and a strange, sideways tribute to a working tree.
Of all the painters who have looked at olive trees, none looked harder than Van Gogh in his last full year. Living at his own request in the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, just outside Saint-Rémy-de-Provence from May 1889, he turned again and again to the working groves around him — the same kind of trees that had fed Provence for centuries. He made around fifteen olive canvases in that year, in distinct bursts, and treated these ordinary, productive trees with the seriousness usually reserved for portraits. The result is the most sustained artistic study of the olive ever made.
Why the olives
Van Gogh was drawn to the olive groves of Provence as a counterpart to his cypresses — both ancient, both twisted, both rooted in the southern light he had come south to find. He wrote to his brother Theo that the olive was ‘something other’, hard to paint, its foliage shifting from silver to bronze to blue-green as the light moved. He worked through the seasons, capturing pickers among the trunks and the gnarled limbs against ochre soil. These were real, productive groves, and he approached them not as pretty scenery but as difficult, living subjects worth a painter’s full attention.
What he saw in them
The olive gave Van Gogh a subject that was alive and old at once. He painted the trees not as background but as living things, their trunks heaving like bodies, the whole grove caught mid-motion. There is sorrow in some of the canvases — the November group is bound up with his feelings about Christ in the olive grove of Gethsemane — and a fierce calm in others, but the tree is always working: rooted, fruit-bearing, enduring. That, more than any symbolism, is why the paintings still move people who have stood in a real grove. He understood something growers know in their hands: an olive is patient, gnarled by labour, and far older than the person tending it.
Stand where he stood
Here is the reward for an olive-minded traveller. The groves around the old monastery at Saint-Rémy are still there, still worked, and standing among the trunks makes Van Gogh’s restless brushwork suddenly make sense — an old olive really does look like it is moving. The trees a serious grower keeps are often a century or more old, exactly the patient, twisted character he was chasing. He was not inventing drama; he was recording it. Look at a real ancient olive in low Provençal light and you see the same writhing forms he put on canvas — proof that his ‘distortion’ was, in the olive’s case, close to honest observation.
| When | 1889, during his stay at Saint-Rémy |
|---|---|
| Where | Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum, near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence |
| How many | Around fifteen olive-tree canvases |
| The groves | Real, working Provence olive groves |
| The mood | From fierce calm to the sorrow of Gethsemane |
| The source | His own paintings and letters to his brother Theo |
Van Gogh’s olive year
| When (1889) | What he painted |
|---|---|
| May | Arrives at the Saint-Rémy asylum; the groves are all around |
| June | A first group of olive canvases in bright summer light |
| Through summer | Studies the shifting silver-to-bronze foliage |
| November | A second group, tied to his feelings on Gethsemane |
| December | Paintings of pickers working among the trunks |
| Across the year | Around fifteen olive canvases in all |
Seeing the paintings and the trees
- The twisting trunks are close to honest observation — old olives really do writhe.
- He treated working groves with the seriousness of portraiture.
- The November group carries the sorrow of Gethsemane, itself an olive grove.
- Stand in a real Saint-Rémy grove and his brushwork makes sense.
Van Gogh’s olive trees: common questions
How many olive-tree paintings did Van Gogh make?
Around fifteen, almost all in 1889 during his stay at the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.
Where did he paint them?
In the working olive groves around the asylum at Saint-Rémy, in the Alpilles of Provence, when he was allowed outside its walls.
Why did he paint olives so often?
He saw them as a counterpart to his cypresses — ancient, twisted, and hard to paint — and wrote to Theo that the olive was ‘something other’, its foliage shifting colour with the light.
Are the paintings connected to Gethsemane?
Yes — the November 1889 group is bound up with his feelings about Christ’s agony in the olive grove of Gethsemane.
Can I visit the groves he painted?
Yes — the groves around the old monastery at Saint-Rémy are still there and still worked, and standing among them makes his restless brushwork make sense.
If you ever visit Saint-Rémy, the groves around the old monastery are still there, still worked. Stand among the trunks and Van Gogh’s restless brushwork suddenly makes sense — an old olive really does look like it is moving. The trees a serious grower keeps are often a century or more old, exactly the patient, twisted character he was chasing. People call his style ‘distortion’, but with olives it is closer to honest reporting: he painted what an ancient tree actually looks like in low southern light. The olive did half the work; he just had the eyes to see it.
Drawn from Van Gogh’s 1889 Saint-Rémy olive-grove paintings and his letters to Theo.