Almond Blossom, 1890

Van Gogh has painted the almond tree from directly underneath, so all you get is branches and sky. The blossom is just out, white with a blush of pink at the centres, and the branches cut across the turquoise in dark confident lines that go right off the edges of the picture.

No ground, no horizon, no distance, only that first burst of spring held up against a sky with no cloud in it at all.