Petal power: Vincent van Gogh's The Pink Peach Tree

There’s something religious about this 1888 painting of springtime in Arles in the south of France. The peach tree in bloom seems to be full of an inner fire. It is a peach tree but also the burning bush, a sign from heaven. It hits Van Gogh with revelatory force and the sheer reality of it bubbles out of the blue in massed clogged mountains of pink paint. The dry heat of the earth, the depth of the sky, add to Van Gogh’s awed sense that he has found the vein of gold in the heart of the world Illustration: Corbis