Lilac Bush — Vincent van Gogh, 1889

Painted in May 1889 in the walled garden of the Saint-Paul asylum, this is Van Gogh at close range — one shrub, treated almost as a portrait. The lilac is held by the same charged brushwork he was giving to wheat fields and cypresses, just turned inward. As a postcard it travels well: an intimate piece, neither imposing nor trying. From the Vincent van Gogh collection.