Name: Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette - Vincent van Gogh
Brand: Dori
SKU: head-of-a-skeleton-with-a-burning-cigarette-vincent-van-gogh
Price: 33.8 USD
Availability: InStock

Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890) c. 1885–1886 · Oil on canvas · 32.3 × 24.8 cm · Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Painted during van Gogh's studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, this small and wickedly irreverent canvas is unique in his body of work — the only painting he made that could be described as darkly comic. Academic drawing classes of the period routinely used human skulls as exercises in form and shading, and van Gogh appears to have produced this as a sardonic commentary on exactly that tradition, adding a lit cigarette to the jaw of his subject with a subversive wit entirely at odds with the solemnity the exercise was meant to inspire. Yet the painting is far from merely a joke — executed with the same thickly worked, energetic brushstrokes that would define his mature style, the skull emerges from an almost impenetrable black ground with genuine sculptural force, the bone rendered in warm creams, ochres and greens. The burning cigarette, a wisp of smoke curling into the darkness, carries its own quiet memento mori: a reminder that even the pleasures of the living are consumed, in the end, to ash.

100% combed ring-spun cotton
Charcoal Heather and Carbon Grey is 60% cotton and 40% polyester
Heavyweight fabric (6.5 oz)
Unisex sizing
Relaxed fit

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