There are two Van Gogh's and there is a pretty clear line of demarcation in his life. He went from being a painter to becoming the Vincent Van Gogh we all know and admire.

There is no mistaking those beautiful, bold and colorful brush strokes that he made on the canvas.

And I believe this transformation happened in 1887 when he painted the same still life twice. Between these two paintings there is a small but substantial difference.

Let's take a look.

Here are the two paintings. They are the same subject and scene.

The moment of change in his painting is, to me, delineated by that small splash of blue in the second image. It's on the left of the bowl.

Was it happenstance? Luck? Did he have an epiphany? Or did he run out of one color and had to use the blue?
I don't know what caused this dramatic change in color and brush stroke but I am glad it happened.

This was the burgeoning of that artist we all know and love.

He developed this new way of painting - bringing it to it's zenith with the famous starry night.