Skull

Vincent van Gogh

Oil on canvas

Van Gogh Museum

Painted in Paris in May 1887, Skull is an oil on canvas study by Vincent van Gogh depicting a human skull rendered against a warm yellow background, executed with characteristic Post-Impressionist energy. Rather than treating the subject in monochrome, Van Gogh explored colour as a formal problem, using many different hues and a zigzagging load of thick white paint to evoke the reflective surface of bone. The work belongs to a small group of skull studies Van Gogh made in 1887–88, distinct from his earlier Antwerp skeleton paintings, and reflects his sustained interest in traditional vanitas imagery filtered through a boldly experimental approach to colour and brushwork. Van Gogh had moved to Paris in 1886, where contact with the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists transformed his palette and technique, and Skull stands as evidence of that evolving pictorial investigation.