Vincent Van Gogh, Sunflowers

Vincent Van Gogh, Sunflowers

Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers paintings are among his most famous. He made these in Arles, in the south of France, in 1888 and 1889. Vincent painted a total of five large canvases with sunflowers in a vase, using three shades of yellow "and nothing else." In this way, he demonstrated that it was possible to create an image with numerous variations of a single color.

The sunflower paintings held a special meaning for Van Gogh: he wrote that they communicated "gratitude." He hung the first two in the room of his friend, the painter Paul Gauguin, who came to live with him for a while in the Yellow House. Gauguin was impressed by the sunflowers, which he thought were 'completely Vincent.' Van Gogh had already been painting a new version during the time his friend stayed, and Gauguin later wanted one of the sunflowers as a gift, something Vincent did not want to give. Later, he produced two loose copies, one of which is now in the Van Gogh Museum.

Like other painters working at the time, Vincent made still lifes of flowers. But he did things a bit differently. After working with various flowers, he chose a specific kind: the sunflower. His painter friends thought his sunflowers were maybe a bit coarse and unrefined. But that was exactly what Vincent liked, and he also enjoyed painting the flowers on their way to seed. He gave sunflowers the starring role in many paintings.

Vincent knew his sunflower paintings were special. As did other people. After his death, his friends brought sunflowers to his funeral. The sunflowers became synonymous with Vincent, as he had hoped.

Vincent is famous all over the world for his painting of sunflowers in a vase. But many people don't realize that he made multiple versions of this painting. These five works can now be found in museums all over the world, from Tokyo to Amsterdam.

In addition to these five famous versions of his sunflowers, he also painted two more versions. One is in private hands, the other, unfortunately, was lost during World War II.

Vincent started painting flower still lifes to experiment with color. Flower still lifes also sold well, which was another reason to paint them. After seeing the fresh, colorful paintings of the Impressionists in Paris, Vincent wanted to add more color to his works.

His first flower still lifes still had traditional colors, but Vincent tried increasingly extreme color contrasts.