Pasture in Bloom

Pasture in Bloom (1887), at the Kröller-Müller Museum, belongs to Van Gogh's Paris-period series of suburban landscape subjects painted in the meadows and fields accessible from Montmartre and the Seine suburbs. He was absorbing Impressionist treatment of outdoor light and vegetation during this period, and the flowering pasture — covered with wildflowers and spring grass — gave him a subject that demanded a higher-keyed palette than anything in his Dutch period. The transition from his Nuenen earth tones to the vivid greens and varied colours of a Parisian spring meadow was one of the most dramatic shifts in his career, and these Paris pastoral subjects document the process in real time. The Kröller-Müller Museum, with its exceptional Van Gogh collection, preserves this alongside the more dramatic works as evidence of the gradual chromatic transformation that preceded the Arles explosion.

The meadow is rendered with varied, energetic brushwork — short dabs and strokes capturing individual flower heads within the overall carpet of bloom. Van Gogh's developing Impressionist palette is evident: high-keyed greens, yellows, and punctuating flower colors laid in complementary relationships. The composition is open and atmospheric.