Oleanders

Oleanders, painted in August 1888 in Arles and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, depicts the flowering shrubs that Van Gogh encountered everywhere in Provence and associated with the intense heat and color of the south. He wrote to Theo that oleanders were 'raging with flowering' and connected their exuberant pink blooms to the emotional intensity he felt in Arles. The bouquet arrangement places the flowers against a background that includes a book by Émile Zola — a deliberate pairing of natural vitality with the literary naturalism that Van Gogh admired. The painting belongs to the series of bold flower canvases, including the Sunflowers, that he produced in Arles as potential decorations for the Yellow House.

Oil on canvas with the vigorous, swirling brushwork Van Gogh applied to flower subjects in Arles — each petal and leaf indicated with a distinct, charged stroke that gives the whole bouquet a quivering energy. The pink flowers against green foliage and the warm background create a color harmony of extraordinary vitality.