The perspective chosen by Van Gogh guides your gaze upward into the tangle of branches. Looking at the painting, you feel as if you are in the middle of the flowering trees.

Soon after Van Gogh arrived in Arles, the spring came. There were many fruit orchards around the city. He enthusiastically painted a large series of studies of orchards in blossom. These plum trees were poorly maintained, as their long branches show. Van Gogh was especially fond of timeworn trees like these.