Vase with Chinese Asters and Gladioli

About this work

Van Gogh’s first summer in Paris, 1886. He painted dozens of vases of flowers not out of love of flowers but to study colour — cheap models that hold still.

Here Rami Alon raises stones out of the surface. The mosaic stops being flat and takes on a third dimension: the flowers physically stand proud of the vase. It is the only work in the exhibition built this way — mosaic’s answer to the paint Van Gogh piled thick on the canvas.