Dish with Citrus Fruit
Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), Paris, February-March 1887
oil on canvas,
21.5 cm x 27.5 cm
Credits (obliged to state): Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
In early 1887, Van Gogh experimented with thinned oil paint on an absorbent ground. This creates a matt, translucent effect. Van Gogh's Dish with Citrus Fruit is an example of this technique, which is called peinture à l'essence.
If you look closely, you can see that the fruit and the background were painted with parallel lines and hatching. Van Gogh used his thinnest brushes for this purpose. Some strokes are less than half a millimetre wide.
