Vase with Flowers

Vase with Flowers (1886) at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag belongs to the extensive series of flower still lifes through which Van Gogh systematically absorbed Impressionist colour technique during his Paris period. He painted dozens of flower arrangements during 1886 and 1887, using them as controlled laboratory experiments in colour — testing how different flower types, with their specific hues and forms, behaved in relation to each other and to their backgrounds. Each composition was a practical application of the colour theory he was studying through Delacroix's writings and his conversations with the Neo-Impressionists; the vase arrangement was a convenient format that contained a complex range of colour problems within a single manageable subject. The Kunstmuseum Den Haag holds a significant collection of nineteenth and twentieth-century European art.

The flowers are organized in a relatively dense bouquet, each bloom receiving individual attention through varied brushwork. The palette is noticeably lighter and more chromatic than his Dutch period, with clear Impressionist influence. Color relationships between adjacent blooms are observed with the analytical attention of a painter consciously learning new methods.