Why the Vase Won: Van Gogh's Summer of Still Lifes

In the summer of 1886, Vincent van Gogh set aside human sitters and turned instead to flowers, producing 35 still life paintings of blooms arranged in vases. The Dutch artist worked in bold, saturated color, building an entire body of work around the vase and the bouquet rather than the figure. It is that choice — flowers over faces — that keeps these pictures in demand with collectors today, arrangement and pigment doing the work a portrait sitter would normally do.

With reporting from The Collector.