Oleanders

For Vincent van Gogh, oleanders embodied joy and renewal, flowers he described as blooming “inexhaustibly” and continually producing vigorous new shoots. In this painting of August 1888, the blossoms overflow a majolica jug that Van Gogh frequently used for his Arles still lifes. The flowers are deliberately set in symbolic dialogue with Émile Zola’s La joie de vivre, a novel that Van Gogh had earlier contrasted with an open Bible in a Nuenen still life of 1885, underscoring his evolving reflections on life, vitality, and belief.