Undergrowth
Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), Paris, July 1887
oil on canvas,
46.0 cm x 38.0 cm
Credits (obliged to state): Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
Even in Paris, Van Gogh was always in search of nature, if only in the form of an urban park. Are those brambles in the foreground? With streaks of purplish blue for the ripe blackberries and dark red for the unripe fruit?
But perhaps it’s worth thinking less about what Van Gogh was painting here than about how he painted it – using little dots and dashes to depict light and shade. He picked up this way of painting from the Neo-Impressionists. Their style is sometimes called Pointillism (or ‘dotted art’) and it was the very latest thing in Paris at that time. Paul Signac was one of their leading lights. Van Gogh got to know him after he moved to the French capital.
