Fourteenth of July Celebration in Paris

Van Gogh had been in Paris only a few months when he painted this around the 14th of July, 1886. Bastille Day had been the official national holiday for just six years, brought in by the young Third Republic, and the city marked it by hanging out flags until whole streets vanished behind red, white, and blue. Van Gogh piles the tricolor on in thick, hurried strokes, with small dark figures of families gathered below to watch. He had come from the Netherlands with a dark, earthy palette, and here, in a wall of French flags, his color begins to break open into something brighter. The canvas itself is small, not much larger than a sheet of newspaper.