''Two Crabs'' is an 1889

oil painting Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...

. It is a

still life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...

of two crabs, one on its back and one upright, with a green background. The work is

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...

canvas Canvas is an extremely durable Plain weave, plain-woven Cloth, fabric used for making sails, tents, Tent#Marquees and larger tents, marquees, backpacks, Shelter (building), shelters, as a Support (art), support for oil painting and for other ite ...

of high and wide. Van Gogh is thought to have painted this work after his hospital release in January 1889. It was possibly inspired by a Japanese print of a crab by

Hokusai , known mononymously as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. His woodblock printing in Japan, woodblock print series ''Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'' includes the iconic print ''The Gr ...

that he had seen in the magazine ''

Le Japon Artistique ''Artistic Japan'' was a magazine of Japanese art, published by German-born French art dealer Siegfried Bing. It ran for thirty-six monthly issues from 1888 to 1891 in French, English, and German editions and contributed to a revival of Japonism. ...

'', that his brother Theo van Gogh had sent him in September 1888. The painting is held by the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current di ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, on loan from a private collector.

Related work

'' Crab on its Back'', a still life of a single crab lying on its back, is a related painting by Van Gogh. It is in the collection of the

Van Gogh Museum The Van Gogh Museum () is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw. The museum opened o ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Two Crabs 1889 paintings Crustaceans in art Paintings in the National Gallery, London Paintings by Vincent van Gogh Still life paintings Oil on canvas paintings Works about crabs

Related work

See also

References