Soutine's The Great Blue Tree

Chaïm Soutine's The Great Blue Tree shows a massive tree swaying in a violent storm. The tree calls to mind the Tree of Life in Jewish tradition, and also echoes something closer to home for Soutine, a Jew born in what is now Belarus: in the village of his childhood, trees were regarded as sacred. The dark sky and raging storm hint at the precarious, unsettled lives Jewish communities led at the time.

Soutine painted this work in 1930. Struggling with Paris's high cost of living, he had by then left the city for the small town of Céret with the help of an art dealer friend. Living costs were lower there, which freed up enough money for paint that he was able to produce a great many works.