Still Life with Grapes

Still Life with Grapes: Vincent van Gogh

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Vincent van Gogh Oil Painting - Still Life with Grapes

Keywords: Life, Grapes

Work Overview: Still Life with Grapes
1887
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

In Van Gogh's first months in Paris, he stayed in his brother Theo's small apartment on Rue Laval. Vincent's behavior could be disruptive and unnerving to Theo and others. A friend of Theo's wrote of Vincent, "The man hasn't the slightest notion of social conditions. He is always quarreling with everybody. Consequently Theo has a lot of problem getting along with him." As means of calming himself, Vincent painted fall fruit in the autumn of 1886, which he imbues with seemingly "supernatural vitality and beauty." Multi-colored, contrasting colored brushstrokes radiate in a circle from the fruit with an "aura of electrical radiance."[61]

Still Life with Apples, Pears, Lemons and Grapes (F382) was Van Gogh's opportunity to explore Blanc's recommendation about combining colors: "If one brings together sulfur (yellow) and garnet (dark red), which is its exact opposite, being equidistant from nasturtium (orange) and campanula (blue-mauve), the garnet and sulfur will excite one another, because they are each others' complementaries." In the background, Van Gogh used short brushstrokes of light blue and pink, giving the impression that the fruit is sitting in a basket. Van Gogh may have seen Claude Monet's Still Life with Apples and Grapes in Paris, but while the subject matter is roughly the same, the composition is not. Monet paints the fruit on a diagonally placed table to "anchor his composition in space."[62] Having removed any form of distraction, such as a table or background,[61] Van Gogh placed each piece of fruit by itself, creating a "semi-abstract, decorative effect."[62]

Still Life with Quinces and Lemons (F383) is a study in yellow. The painting, and even the frame, are in shades of yellow, ocher and brown. The painting also has highlights in pink, red, green and blue. A fine example of an Impressionist painting, Van Gogh dedicated the painting to his brother Theo for his guidance and introduction to modern art.[27] Over the yellow frame, Van Gogh painted criss-cross marks, evocative of Japanese calligraphy.[63] Adding a painted frame to a work of art was not unusual for painters of this time; Georges Seurat and Paul Signac also painted their frames. What is unusual is that the painted frame remained with the painting. In most cases the original frames were replaced over the years to suit its owner's taste.

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