Still Life with Quinces

A heap of golden quinces glows at the center of this 1887 still life by Vincent van Gogh, painted while he was living in Paris. Quinces are odd choices for a fruit painting. Hard, fragrant, and too sour to bite into raw, they are the tougher relatives of apples and pears. Van Gogh did not seem to care about eating them though. What drew him was their warm yellow skin, which he piled into a shimmering mound and set against cool blues and greens so the colors seem to buzz against each other.

The brushwork here tells the real story. Short, quick strokes dart across the canvas, giving the speckled tabletop and the swirling cloth behind a restless kind of life. Van Gogh was still finding his voice during these Paris years, borrowing lessons from the Impressionists and the younger painters around him. His colors grew brighter and his hand grew freer. A simple pile of fruit might not sound like much, but this is Van Gogh testing out the bold, energetic style that would soon become unmistakably his own.