Geranium in a Flowerpot

Geranium in a Flowerpot (1886) belongs to Van Gogh's Paris-period series of potted plant still lifes — a subject that connected the Japanese approach to close botanical observation that he was studying through his print collection with the humble domestic subject matter of working-class Parisian interiors. The geranium was one of the most common working-class pot plants in late-nineteenth-century Paris, found on windowsills throughout Montmartre, and Van Gogh's treatment of it was democratic in the same way as his other humble still-life subjects: insisting on the full visual interest of an ordinary object that decorative convention would overlook. He was simultaneously developing his approach to complementary colour contrasts, and the geranium's red-orange blooms against the green foliage provided a natural demonstration of the warm-cool pairing he was studying in theory and practice. Current location unknown.

The geranium's vivid flowers provide chromatic contrast with the earthenware pot below. Van Gogh renders the plant with his characteristic directness — the flowers built from energetic strokes, the leaves carefully observed. The composition is simple and frontal, the single plant occupying most of the canvas space.