Lilac Bush

Vincent van Gogh

Oil on canvas

State Hermitage Museum

Painted in May 1889 shortly after his voluntary admission to the psychiatric hospital of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Lilac Bush depicts a flowering lilac bush in the asylum's garden. Van Gogh rendered the subject with broken, separate brushstrokes and vibrant forms that recall the lessons of Impressionism while achieving a spatial dynamism and expressive intensity that goes well beyond it. As a Dutch Post-Impressionist, Van Gogh transformed modest natural subjects through his distinctive handling of color and paint, infusing the composition with powerful, vivid energy. The painting stands as one of a group of garden works—alongside his celebrated Irises—produced during the first weeks of his stay at Saint-Rémy, a period that would prove among the most creatively fertile of his career.