Still Life with a Bouquet of Daisies

Van Gogh painted this modest still life of daisies in 1886, shortly after arriving in Paris and beginning to assimilate Impressionist color principles under the influence of Pissarro, Monet, and others. The choice of daisies — simple, common flowers — reflects his egalitarian aesthetic that found beauty in the ordinary. The Philadelphia Museum of Art's canvas shows his palette lightening dramatically compared to his dark Dutch period work, with the daisies set against a lighter background and rendered in the short, broken strokes he was learning from the Impressionists.

Van Gogh renders the daisies in short, lively strokes of white and pale yellow, building the petals with directional marks that give them individual character. The stems and foliage are handled in greens notably brighter than his Dutch palette.