Flowerpot with Garlic Chives

Flowerpot with Garlic Chives (1887), at the Van Gogh Museum, represents Van Gogh's interest in modest, everyday plant subjects during his Paris period. Garlic chives—an unglamorous kitchen herb—reflect his persistent sympathy with ordinary life and working-class materials even in the midst of his encounter with Impressionist aesthetics and Japanese art. The modest subject matter connects to his earlier Dutch period paintings of peasant tools and vegetable matter, suggesting that even under Paris's artistic influence he retained the moral seriousness that made him look at humble subjects with particular intensity and affection.

The upward thrust of the chive leaves gives the composition strong vertical energy that Van Gogh's directional brushstrokes reinforce. He treats the plant with the same intense scrutiny he would give to flowers—each blade of grass rendered as an expressive mark rather than a generic botanical notation. The pot is likely painted with broader, more structural strokes, grounding the energetic growth above.