Glass with Yellow Roses

A small glass rather than a vase holds these yellow roses in Van Gogh's 1886 canvas at the Van Gogh Museum—the modest vessel emphasizing the informality and intimacy of his approach to domestic still life. Yellow flowers would later become almost synonymous with Van Gogh through the famous sunflower canvases, but these early Paris yellow roses are quieter explorations of how warm yellow behaves against different backgrounds and in different qualities of light. The intimacy of a small glass as container is characteristic of his refusal of compositional pretension.

The yellow roses are built up in strokes of cadmium and ochre, their warmth played against the cooler grey-green of the glass and the neutral background. The glass's transparency is suggested through the lighter, thinner paint application where the stem passes through the water, demonstrating Van Gogh's increasing command of specific material effects.