In 1889, Van Gogh voluntarily went to the sanatorium for the mentally ill, which was located in the former monastery of Saint-Remy. His doctor, along with his brother Theo, created all the necessary conditions for Vincent to work. He wrote the views of their hospital windows, still lifes with flowers, a garden, copied the works of other masters.
This work, written at the end of his stay in the hospital, is now stored in the National Gallery of Washington. The artist painted a vase of roses. Once a magnificent bouquet has become disheveled, wilting flowers are sloping down, some of them lifelessly lie on the table.
The mood of wilting and melancholy permeates the entire canvas. An unusually bright color scheme is based on a combination of whitened shades of blue, green and pink. Even the brown color of the pitcher makes the artist cool, adding to it the blue brush strokes in the shady part.
The bright background is striated with wavy white strokes. The outlines of flowers and leaves also have an indefinite and seemingly unsteady shape, which in combination with color makes them almost immaterial. To give the picture clarity, the artist circles the individual elements with a thin contour.
The picture conveys a mood of light sadness, which, nevertheless, does not carry any negative in itself. Rather, it is the longing of a pained artist who sees in nature and creativity a counterbalance to his difficult emotional state.
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