Describe the characteristics of the Meaning in this artwork's Analysis.
The National Gallery of Art summarizes this series:In the olive trees — in the expressive power of their ancient and gnarled forms — van Gogh found a manifestation of the spiritual force he believed resided in all of nature. His brushstrokes make the soil and even the sky seem alive with the same rustling motion as the leaves, stirred to a shimmer by the Mediterranean wind. These strong individual dashes do not seem painted so much as drawn onto the canvas with a heavily loaded brush. The energy in their continuous rhythm communicates to us, in an almost physical way, the living force that van Gogh found within the trees themselves, the very spiritual force that he believed had shaped them.
Skye Jethani, author of The Divine Commodity: Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity, asserts that in many of his paintings, the olive tree series in particular, van Gogh conveys the redemptive quality of sorrow and that even in sorrow, there can be rejoicing.  To quote van Gogh's sermon of 1876:Sorrow is better than joy... for by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better. Our nature is sorrowful, but for those who have learnt and are learning to look at Jesus Christ, there will always be reason to rejoice. It is a good word, that of St. Paul: as being sorrowful yet also rejoicing.
National Gallery of Art Mediterranean National Gallery