The film centers on Spanish painter Antonio López García and his attempt to paint the eponymous quince tree.

López struggles to capture a perfect, fleeting moment of beauty on canvas, and the film meticulously chronicles his work.

He drives in pegs to mark his stance, hangs a weight and uses strings to determine the symmetry and center of his painting.

López's future attempts are much more rushed and frantic as he struggles to compete with the weather, the fleeting sun and the rotting and weighed down fruit in maintaining his vision.

Janet Maslin wrote that "the purity and breadth of this meticulous study are all the more gratifying in view of its unprepossessing style.