Fifty shades of yellow
Quinces, Lemons, Pears and Grapes
What immediately strikes us about this fruit still life is that Van Gogh painted it in a whole spectrum of yellows (ton-sur-ton). He showed that he could make a painting with different hues of a single colour.
Even so, giving the work enough depth was a great challenge. He therefore used different colours to depict the shadows and the curved shapes of the fruit: red, green, orange, and blue. He also varied his brushstrokes to mould the curves.
![](https://ontrafelvangoghblob.blob.core.windows.net/ontrafelvangoghblob/images/6/f/a/original-xs/6FaurfF5y2FqkLBLqLyU15ZSbJds4z8WM85Lj8yz.jpg)
Van Gogh tried out colour combinations with balls of wool before starting to paint. He almost certainly used the yellow-and-ochre ball for this still life.
Van Gogh's best-known ton-sur-ton still life is of course Sunflowers, which he would make eighteen months later. In most of his paintings, however, he used contrasting colours that enhanced each other's effect.
![](https://ontrafelvangoghblob.blob.core.windows.net/ontrafelvangoghblob/images/f/3/8/original-xs/f38dOlcu90goDswSTGK0VrrAJvDSiT8BmTAizPh4.jpg)
The yellow balls of wool that Van Gogh used to try out the colour effect for the painting Quinces.
![](https://ontrafelvangoghblob.blob.core.windows.net/ontrafelvangoghblob/images/g/5/1/original-xs/g51N4SSnfrfEKHIlMAHHwUarbNBZimBI0VsnJ9Li.jpg)
Sunflowers, 1889
oil on canvas
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
‘The sunflowers are progressing; there’s a new bouquet of 14 flowers on a green-yellow background, so it’s exactly the same effect — but in larger format, no. 30 canvas1 — as a still life of quinces and lemons that you already have’.
Letter to Theo van Gogh. Arles, on or about Sunday, 26 August 1888.