I’ve been inside much of March and April working on larger Italian landscapes from sketches. I find this season difficult to paint well. In Florence, none of the plein air painters would work outside during these months. The acidic new greens, flowers, and blossoms are beautiful, but not necessarily picturesque. This happens often in painting. I’ve told the story in a previous post about watching dolphins jumping in sunset, and how it can be a wonderful experience, but under no circumstances should one attempt to paint dolphins jumping at sunset.
There aren’t many great blossom or tulip paintings for the same reason. Here are a few.
Claude Monet. Apple Trees in Bloom. 1873
Claude Monet. Trees in Bloom.
Claude Monet. A Field of Tulips with the Rijnsburg Windmill.
Claude Monet. Tulip Fields at Sassenheim.
(Wikipainting has an amazing online collection of Monet’s work. 1338 paintings in chronological order and in high resolution. Definitely worth a visit.)
Isaac Levitan. Spring in Italy, 1890.
George Inness. Spring Blossoms, Montclair, New Jersey
Jean-François Millet. Spring.
If anyone has any others feel free to post links. This was just from a quick perusal of Google images.