Focus on this artwork and explain the Description.
Imperial Fritillaries in a Copper Vase is an oil painting on canvas measuring 73.5 by 60.5 cm which was painted in Paris in 1887. It depicts a bouquet of golden imperial fritillaries in a copper vase, the shiny patina of which (surrounded by lavender highlights) "reflects the color of the flowers as the motted wall stands out with a combination of blue, green and yellow shades" with flecks of white like "sparkling lights." The "moody blues" and "vibrant golds" in the painting can also be appreciated in other of Van Gogh's works such as The Starry Night and Bedroom at Arles.  This painting with its "thickly applied paint and convoluted brushstrokes" presages Van Gogh´s famous Sunflowers. Color was an important element in his work at the time it was painted, as it expresses the artist´s "elevated mood" during the period he lived with his brother Theo in Montmartre in Paris (1886-1888). This piece has been described as a "riotous celebration of color, texture and light," as it shows how Van Gogh accomplished light and the varied ways in which he applied the paint with "dashes in the background, directional brushstrokes on the table, impasto highlights on the metal vase".Vincent, as mentioned by the Scottish painter, Archibald Standish Hartrick, was interested in a theory that stated that "the eye carried a portion of the last sensation it had enjoyed into the next, so that something of both must be included in every picture made". The inspiration for the selection of complementary colors (orange and blue in this painting), came from noticing that "when entering a lamplit room out of the night increases the orange effect of the light, and in the contrary case, the blue." As Vincent wrote, he tried to "render intense colour and not a grey harmony." Eugène Murer, the Impressionist painter contemporaneous with Van Gogh who owned the Fritillaries in a Copper Vase painting, considered him "the greatest colorist of the century after Renoir." Van Gogh was always open minded about trying new painting techniques and even liked to use several in a same work. This painting is an example of this, as it mixes Pointillism in the background as "expression of the nature of the central focus of the painting"  and Impressionism in the brushstrokes of the flowers and vase. Van Gogh applied these techniques inspired by Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists of the time, that would be later used in other pieces, mainly portraits and self-portraits.
Pointillism imperial fritillaries Montmartre Bedroom at Arles Sunflowers The Starry Night