Still Life with Straw Hat

Van Gogh's still lifes with hats and books from the Paris period reflect his immersion in the informal material culture of bohemian Paris — objects encountered in cafés, studios, and cheap boarding houses rather than the carefully composed accessories of bourgeois still-life tradition. The straw hat, a peasant and outdoor garment, appears in several of his self-portraits and was clearly associated in his mind with working-class directness. These Paris still lifes are exercises in pure colour observation, free of the symbolic freight he would later apply to sunflowers and shoes in Arles.

The pale straw of the hat is rendered in short, light strokes of yellow and cream, set against a more saturated background. The composition is informal, with objects placed at slight diagonals rather than orthogonally. The handling is loose and rapid, suggesting a quick notation rather than a laboured studio composition.