Vase with Chinese Asters and Gladioli

In the spring of 1886 Van Gogh moved to Paris to live with his brother Theo, and everything about his painting began to change. The dark browns of his Dutch years gave way to colour. That summer he painted flowers, more than 30 bouquets in a few months, partly because live models cost money he did not have and cut flowers did not. This vase of asters and gladioli is one of them. He had just discovered the still lifes of Adolphe Monticelli, a French painter who piled his paint on thick and bright, and you can see Van Gogh trying it, working red against green and blue against orange to find out what strong colours do beside each other. These were practice, really, exercises in colour and a looser hand. The plain vase in the picture still survives, kept in the same museum in Amsterdam.