Vase with Zinnias and Geraniums 1886

oil on canvas
61 x 45.9 cm
Purchased 1950
National Gallery of Canada (no. 5045)

A multicoloured bouquet stands in a vase. Zinnias, geraniums, cornflowers and other blooms rich in colour stand out against the brown background of the composition.

After living in Paris for a few months, Vincent Van Gogh discovered the lively colours and the discontinuous brushstroke of modern painting, in particular in the work of Eugène Delacroix and the Impressionists. But, it was the orchestration of colours and the thick application of paint by a little known contemporary painter from Marseilles, Adolphe Monticelli, that would have a decisive impact on him.

Arriving in Paris in spring 1886, van Gogh came face-to-face with modern painting and a colour palette much brighter than the dark, sombre hues commonly used in the Netherlands. Among his early Parisian paintings are several still-lifes of flowers which reveal, in their rich application of colour, the influence of Adolphe Monticelli (1824-1886), a contemporary painter from Marseilles whose work van Gogh admired and later collected.