Apples

Apples (1887), at the Van Gogh Museum, is one of the simplest and most direct of Van Gogh's Paris still lifes—a study in the essential qualities of a single common fruit subject. Where his more elaborate still lifes combine multiple objects in complex arrangements, this focused study allowed him to concentrate entirely on colour, form, and brushwork without compositional distraction. The apple's particular appeal was its self-contained form—a sphere that presented a controlled surface for exploring how colour and light model three-dimensional form—combined with its cultural resonance as the most commonplace of European fruit subjects.

Each apple is painted as a careful study in three-dimensional form modelled by light—strokes of varied colour following the fruit's spherical surface in a systematic manner that was becoming increasingly deliberate in his Paris period. The background is handled more loosely to push the fruit forward compositionally. The palette for apples—greens, reds, and the yellow-greens of illuminated areas—gave him an opportunity to explore the colour variations within a seemingly simple object.