Vase with White and Red Carnations

Van Gogh painted this in the summer of 1886, a few months after he turned up in Paris to live with his brother Theo. He had come from the grey and brown world of his Dutch years, and Paris hit him with the bright colour of the Impressionists and of Japanese prints. Flowers were a cheap way to practise. He could not afford models, so through that summer he bought cut blooms and worked through them one bouquet at a time, pushing colour against colour. This one sets white and red carnations against a warm background. It was one of dozens of flower studies he made in those Paris months, the year his palette turned from dark to bright.