Description
Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette by Vincent van Gogh sets a skull and upper torso against an almost black background. Cream, ochre and brown strokes shape the cranium, neck, collarbones and ribs, while deep eye sockets give the head a striking presence. A cigarette held between the teeth adds an incongruous everyday gesture to the exposed bones. The slight turn of the head and broad brushwork make the image feel both closely observed and darkly comic.
Painted in early 1886 while Van Gogh studied at the art academy in Antwerp, the work brings humor to a subject associated with anatomical training. The Van Gogh Museum describes it as a youthful joke: drawing skeletons was a standard academy exercise, although painting them was not part of the curriculum. Van Gogh combines recognizable skeletal structure with lively handling of paint, transforming a study of the body into an unexpected character portrait. Its tension comes from the meeting of dead bones and a gesture associated with ordinary life.
Read our guide to giclée prints, browse more Vincent van Gogh prints, or explore Old Man in Sorrow (on the Threshold of Eternity).
