Still Life with Basket of Apples

Van Gogh's still life of a basket of apples, painted in Paris in 1887, belongs to his comprehensive exploration of still-life subjects as exercises in color and composition. Baskets of fruit — particularly apples — were a traditional still-life subject that Cézanne was simultaneously transforming into something monumental; Van Gogh's approach is more spontaneous and chromatic. The basket as container and the apples' varied reds, yellows, and greens gave him material for studying the relationships between warm and cool colors within a unified composition. The Kröller-Müller holds this as one of several Paris period still lifes in its collection.

The basket provides compositional structure while the apples offer chromatic variety — reds, yellows, and greens observed with freshness and energy. Van Gogh's Parisian brushwork is visible in the varied strokes and lighter overall palette compared to his Dutch work. The composition is observed from slightly above, giving the basket its characteristic shape.