Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase: Van Gogh's "Unexpected" Painting

troversy. This thesis will situate the date of this painting securely in Van Gogh’s oeuvre by using methods such as intensive formal analysis, biography, and natural science investigation. BOUQUET OF FLOWERS IN A VASE: VAN GOGH’S “UNEXPECTED” PAINTING Van Gogh loved to paint flowers. He wrote to his brother, Theo, “I for myself am contented, for better or for worse, to be a small gardener who loves his plants.”2 Flowers were easily accessible to Van Gogh, even when he could not afford models or was unable to paint outside. Specific flowers, such as sunflowers, roses, and lilies, frequently occur in his work and are intimately associated with his oeuvre. Flowers were also an ever-changing subject matter, since he would paint what was blooming in the season.3 Flower painting provided the artist with mastery in skills of observation; this later helped in other works such as figure, landscape and portrait painting.4 Catherine Restrepo The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes Van Gogh’s Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase (fig. 1) as a painting that has been a mystery for many scholars as to its place in Van Gogh’s oeuvre. The wall label states, “it is the closest to the mixed bouquets of summer flowers that he produced in ‘quantity’ in Paris;” but at the same time, the label raises a contradiction by stating that this still-life has the ‘quality’ of the paintings Van Gogh produced in Saint-Remy and Auvers.1 Two different periods in Van Gogh’s life are seen in one painting. Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase is given little attention in primary sources and is different from his many other still-life paintings because the techniques employed in this painting are more commonly seen in Van Gogh’s landscapes. As a result, the date of this work has been subject to con- Van Gogh was aware that there is a special art to painting flowers because they have subtle changes in hue and shade, which is of much significance for the overall painting. Van Gogh wanted to “harmonize brutal extremes,” and he found painting flowers as a venue for doing many studies and achieving new ways to use intense color in his paintings.5 Throughout Van Gogh’s life, he went from being influenced by other movements to eventually finding his own artistic style. This became one of the reasons why he was not accepted along with the Impressionist masters; Van Gogh felt he needed to achieve greatness with his own artistic style. 6 With 24 flowers look as if paint was applied before the background dried. this in mind, however, Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase cannot be placed among the works produced before the Paris period (1886): it relies on a familiarity with Impressionism and 19th century color theory and Van Gogh was not introduced to this until he moved to Paris. There is a subtle, but distinctive, use of complementary colors. The purpose of doing so would be to create the feeling that the colors in the painting are brighter than they are by themselves. The orange flowers on the top are a similar hue to the table, and consequently, give the illusion that the blue background is more intense than it is. The red and pink flowers are surrounded by the green fern, which also makes the red brighter. Lastly, Van Gogh used a small amount of light purple in the flowers that are placed around the yellow ones. Through these details, Van Gogh demonstrates his knowledge of the theory of complementary colors. The work is best described in terms of its color: first, there is the dark blue background that fades into the reddish brown table on which rests a bouquet in a vase surrounded at its base by a type of fern. The bouquet is mostly composed of white and yellow flowers. There is no clean yellow paint in the bouquet because it seems that it was painted over when the blue was just drying. The green sections in the bouquet are composed of a variety of greens; even bright, almost fluorescent greens can be seen. On the top of the bouquet, there are a couple of orange flowers and two buds of the same orange flowers on the opposite side. In the lower portion of the bouquet, three other flowers are arranged, one red and the two others pink. This is not to say that this work has no connection to earlier works. Even before the period in Paris, Van Gogh was impressed by Dutch and French artists and in particular, by their use of color and how they painted quickly. He believed it was a joy to paint in one burst and that it gave the paintings a spontaneous quality that Van Gogh wanted to achieve. In a letter to Theo, he suggested that everyone look at French and Dutch paintings because of their realism and their highly variegated color palette.7 In Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, moreover, the position of the vase is at the center of the canvas, a traditional choice that rejects the then-current vogue for Japanese prints and asymmetrical composition. This positioning and densely populated bouquet was often seen in Dutch and French still-life paintings that The viewer is positioned just a little above the flowers, as if one were observing the bouquet standing near the table. There is a sense of balance because the brushstrokes of the table seem to cradle the vase that is positioned in the center of the canvas. The space given to the vase fills a majority of the area with a very densely arranged bouquet. The pace with which Van Gogh painted Bouquet seems to have been very rapid. This is seen in the aggressive application of paint and the way in which some 25 trist, Dr. Paul Gachet, during this period and it was because of him that he moved to Auvers. For some time, Van Gogh’s paintings seemed much calmer and he had lost some characteristics of his style before his commitment directly related to the changes in his life. His paintings started to be dominated by flowers, something that meant security for him.11 Before Saint-Remy, Van Gogh’s paintings reflected his tortured psyche.12 After some time, however, Van Gogh returned to the same style and especially, attempts at achieving grandiosity with color by intensifying its effects. Van Gogh loved the power of color: “In color seeking life the true drawing is modeling with color.”13 His paintings were quickly executed and much more intense, recapturing the anguish Van Gogh felt before Saint-Remy. He was, in part, re-adjusting from living in isolation for a year and returning in many ways to his old self. Auvers is where Van Gogh spent the rest of his days, from May until his suicide in July.14 were an influence early in Van Gogh’s life (fig. 2).8 In order to narrow down the date of the work more specifically, we can look profitably to Van Gogh’s two final years in Saint-Remy and Auvers. In his final years, Van Gogh achieved what many believe to be the highest painting quality of his career. These periods synthesize every bit of influence that Van Gogh might have acquired throughout his life. One can see clearly in Bouquet the many techniques he learned and his mastery of color theory. The (...truncated)