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Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat | Vincent Van Gogh

(Autumn [September-October], 1887 — Oil on canvas).

📍Paris, France.

Gone are the earthy tones, instead; cool blues and lilacs swirl across the canvas. The brushstrokes are now livelier, faster—studies in movement and mood. Painted during his transformative stay in Paris, this self-portrait shows Van Gogh not just observing, but reinventing himself.

He painted tens of self-portraits in Paris (where he had been living for almost two years at that point), often because he didn’t have models to work with. But this one feels particularly observant, there’s no flattery—just introspection.

Van Gogh stares out, solemn and sharp, beneath a soft grey hat. His face looks gaunt, skin is tinged with green and ash. Light falls on his left, highlighting one side—while the other recedes into shadow. The background pulses with short, choppy strokes, almost static—electric and unsettled.

It’s a portrait of a man in motion, learning the language of colour and contrast, while searching for himself in each stroke.

My absolute favourite self-portrait he painted, “Self-Portrait With Grey Felt Hat”, found a home being displayed at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

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Still Life With Cabbage and Clogs | Vincent Van Gogh

(November, 1881 — Oil on canvas).

📍Etten, Netherlands.

One of Van Gogh’s earliest oil paintings, the first attempt, “Still Life With Cabbage and Clogs” is a quiet, grounded piece—rooted in the simplicity of rural life. It was painted while he was still living with his parents in the Dutch village of Etten. The scene being captured is humble; a head of cabbage, thick and crickled, rests beside heavy wooden clogs and a worn jug. The colour palette is muted, browns, greens and ochres. No extravagance, no flourish—only function.

Van Gogh found beauty in what was overlooked by others: the weight of daily life, the nobility in labour, the poetry in objects touched by work-worn hands. The cabbage, the clogs, and the jug weren’t chosen at random, they symbolize a lifestyle that he deeply respected. This was the beginning of a life-long obsession with honesty through art.

His brushwork in this piece is obviously careful, yet it’s not fussy. It’s quiet and the shadows fall naturally, it gently invites attention. Today, “Still Life with Cabbage and Clogs” has found a home on the walls of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

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Head Of A Skeleton With Cigarette | Vincent Van Gogh

(Winter [January-February], 1886 — Oil on canvas).

📍Antwerp, Belgium.

A skeleton, drawn with almost surgical precision, turns slightly in profile. A lit cigarette faintly burns between its grinning teeth—smoke rising in a soft, ironic curl. This piece was likely painted as a technical study and a study and a sly rebellion, as at the time, Van Gogh had briefly attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp.

Students at the time were expected to paint classical anatomy (as it was standard exercise at the academy); lifeless bones, idealized forms, stiff technique. But Van Gogh, forever at odds with conventions, added a touch of humour—and a hint of nihilism. The skeleton smokes a cigarette, casually, not in a dramatic fashion. As if to say: I have one foot in the grave, and the other on a banana peel.

The juxtaposition is subtle, it’s not just a juvenile joke—it’s a quiet commentary on morality, on time, on the absurdity of taking things too seriously. There’s no background, no context, just bone-white and shadow-grey, but the cigarette brings a sudden heat—burning alive. Life and the end of it, in one small flame. Bones and breath.

I got the opportunity to view it at the Gothic Modern exhibition hosted at the National Museum in Oslo, Norway. It was such an incredible experience to witness this beauty in person, it’s my third favourite Van Gogh piece simply because it’s so fucking cool. The intricate anatomy of the skeleton is beyond brilliant.

“Head of A Skeleton With A Burning Cigarette” is almost always housed at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

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Still Life With Bible | Vincent Van Gogh

(October, 1885 — Oil on canvas).

📍Nuenen, Netherlands.

An open bible rests on a table, a burned-out candle beside it. A copy of “La Joie de Vivre” by Émile Zola—a novel about finding joy outside religion. Painted shortly after the death of Van Gogh’s father, this still life is more than just symbolic—it’s autobiographical.

This bible had once belonged to his father, he was a Protestant minister. Its presence is a symbol of authority, tradition and the weight of a spiritual upbringing. But the extinguished candle suggests that something has now ended. Silence—then letting go. Zola’s book, on the other hand, represents a new kind of light: literature, realism, and secular joy. Gogh described it as “a still life of an open, hence an off-white bible, bound in leather, against a black background with a yellow-brown foreground, with an additional note of lemon yellow.”

The scenery is serene, but there is a heaviness to it. There’s no figure, yet Vincent’s presence looms over. His grief, his questioning, and his inner turmoil between faith and freedom. The colours are cool toned, serious—deep blacks, dusty whites, warm browns and the brushwork is deliberate, restrained.

It’s not just another still life, it’s a portrait of an invisible shift. A piece that deeply resonates with me, it’s currently housed in the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

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The Potato Eaters | Vincent Van Gogh

(April, 1885 — Oil on canvas).

📍Nuenen, Netherlands. “The Potato Eaters” is Van Gogh’s first genuinely ambitious piece—and maybe his most heartfelt. The tired and withered faces of five peasant figures are huddled around a wooden table as they eat. They’re having potatoes for this meal, drinking from earthen cups and speaking quietly. The lamp above them casts an uneven amber glow—just enough to reveal their expressions, yet still cloaked in shadow.

It’s quiet, nearly silent. You can almost hear the automatic chewing, the clinking of the cutlery, and the sound of what seems to be coffee being poured. The figures are not beautiful in a classical sense, they’re features are exaggerated, slightly clumsy—but in an intentional manner. Van Gogh wasn’t aiming for perfection, he was reaching for something more honest, something that humanizes these peasants.

He didn’t want to paint their poverty as a tragedy, he wanted to paint it as the truth. He spent months studying the peasants of Nuenen—sketching their hands, their faces, the way they moved. Van Gogh believed that those who “have filled the earth with the same hands they are putting in the dish” had a dignity that deserved to be seen.

The colour palette is a deep and muddy—dark greens, browns and ochres—reflecting the earth they lived off of. Though it received criticism due to the colour palette being on the darker side and the figures not being the most perfect, “The Potato Eaters” remains my second favourite piece he ever made as I always spot new details when looking at it. It currently resides among other Van Gogh works at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands.