Flower Beds in Holland looks more like a selection of ice cream at the parlor. Two scoops of strawberry, one vanilla, lemon and bubblegum, if you may.

The colors popping out of Vincent van Gogh’s landscape show several flower beds before farmhouses beneath a cloudy sky in Holland. Flower Beds in Holland was the first painting Vincent made about flowers. Many more would come after this.

During his life, Vincent moved around a lot, always trying to find his place in the world where he could sit and paint. A simple request, no? Flower Beds in Holland was painted when Vincent lived in The Hague (from 1881-1883). During his time in The Hague, Vincent faced with poverty and cold weather he struggled to keep warm in. It was in these dire circumstances that Vincent found beauty.

Flowers were a big deal in Holland. For the prim and proper, for those that were rich and living in luxury, flower gardens meant leisure. Only the rich had money to own lavish and brightly colored flower gardens, while the middle class and poor were left with flower boxes and pitiful pots. The bright colors clearly entranced Vincent. For this love affair with flowers, you can thank the good fertile Dutch soil.

Flowers, along with other still lifes and landscape scenes and other everyday scenes, weren’t what artists sought to paint. These were dull, ordinary subjects. Who would want to sit for hours painting something so boring? It was the Impressionists who decided these seemingly dull sights were worth the cost of time and very expensive paints. But Vincent was interested in perspective, and the strong lines really allowed for that. It was possibly the landscapes of French artist Charles-Francois Daubigny that inspired Vincent.

No matter the reason, Vincent still painted an image that would have your mouth-watering over flower beds. These Dutch flower beds belonged to a bulb merchant. Flower Beds in Holland could very well be an advertisement for the merchant, because I’d buy all the flowers Vincent painted.