Poster Small Pear Tree in Blossom, Vincent Van Gogh

Small Pear Tree in Blossom. Van Gogh painted a series of flowering fruit trees, including this small pear tree, in the spring of 1888. He chose a high vantage point, creating a contrast between the angular trunk and branches with their dark, heavy contours and the light background. A stone wall and a few trees can be seen to the rear, while to the left is a fence in front of a garden near a pink-yellow house. The large, flat yellow butterfly among the flowers to the right of the trunk is also noteworthy. The decorative painting, with the small tree in the foreground, the high vantage point and the lack of depth, is strongly influenced by the art of the Japanese printmakers, which Van Gogh admired enormously. Vincent Van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter whose work had a far-reaching influence on 20th century art for its vivid colours and emotional impact. Little appreciated during his lifetime, his fame grew in the years after his death. Today, he is widely regarded as one of history's greatest painters and an important contributor to the foundations of modern art. Van Gogh did not begin painting until his late twenties, and most of his best-known works were produced during his final two years. He produced more than 2,000 artworks, consisting of around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches. Although he was little known during his lifetime, his work was a strong influence on the modernist art that followed. Today many of his pieces including his numerous self portraits, landscapes, portraits and sunflowers are among the world's most recognizable and expensive works of art.