Bouquet of gladioli of various colors

The large bouquet of gladioli of various colors at the Chapelle des Pénitents Blancs in Arles was painted in Paris in 1886 during Van Gogh's most systematic period of color education through flower still-life painting. A mixed gladiolus bouquet — with blooms in pinks, reds, whites, and the occasional orange or purple — was specifically chosen because the gladiolus's vertical stem with multiple successive blooms gave him a natural arrangement of varied colors in sequence, each bloom representing a slightly different position in the color spectrum. He was studying Delacroix's color theory at this period and testing the principle of simultaneous contrast — that adjacent colors modify each other visually — using the natural color sequences of mixed flowers as a controlled laboratory. The current location at the Chapelle des Pénitents Blancs in Arles is unexpected — a Paris period flower painting in a small Arles religious building — but reflects the complex circulation of his works through donations and bequests over more than a century. The gladioli's verticality fills the canvas in a way different from his rounded arrangements of roses or sunflowers, creating a cascade of successive blooms from the tall stems to the lower flowers that Van Gogh rendered with his thickest, most directional impasto.

The tall gladioli stalks structure the composition vertically, with the multiple blooms creating a cascade of varied color from top to bottom. Van Gogh applies thick impasto to the individual flowers, using the physical build-up of paint to render the delicate petal structures. The palette is varied and bold — warm pinks and reds against cool greens and whites.