Vase with Cornflowers and Poppies

The summer of 1887 was, for Van Gogh, a summer of flowers. Living in Paris with his brother Theo, he painted one bouquet after another, not because he especially loved flower pieces but because a vase of blooms was a cheap, patient way to work on the thing that obsessed him, how colours behave next to each other. Here he sets red poppies and blue cornflowers against a broken blue background, the warm reds pushing forward, the cool blues holding back. He had arrived in the city painting dark and earthy Dutch scenes. Two years of Paris, and of these flowers, left him working in the bright, separated strokes he would take south to Arles the following year.