Vaso con gladioli e lillà

Van Gogh reached Paris in the spring of 1886 still painting in the browns of his native Holland, and he could see they looked drab beside the French. So that summer he set himself a course of correction: more than 35 studies of cut flowers, done partly in the hope they might sell. Gladioli were a favourite of his, and he liked the way they fanned open once they stood in water. Here he pairs them with lilac and drives colours against their opposites, green beside red, laying the paint on thick, fresh from discovering the blazing flower pieces of an older French painter, Adolphe Monticelli. A plain vase he used for these summer bouquets survives, kept now in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.