Vincent van Gogh is known as aDutch post-Impressionist painter,tormented genius of art, who had a very special relationship withsunflowers.Although the artist’s series of sunflowers had difficultiesduring his lifetime, inthe contemporary world,they are definitely the most instantly recognizable artworks.Image credits:Van Gogh MuseumThis post may includeaffiliate links.
Vincent van Gogh is known as aDutch post-Impressionist painter,tormented genius of art, who had a very special relationship withsunflowers.
Although the artist’s series of sunflowers had difficultiesduring his lifetime, inthe contemporary world,they are definitely the most instantly recognizable artworks.
Image credits:Van Gogh Museum
This post may includeaffiliate links.
During a brief stay at the Yellow House, Gauguin painted Vincent at work in a canvas entitled “The Painter of Sunflowers”.
The Sunflowers series is closely related to the Yellow House where the artist rented 4 rooms. His plan was to turn the yellow corner-building into an artists’ house, where like-minded painters could live and work together. Van Gogh planned to decorate the place with his sunflower paintings.
Vincent van Gogh wanted to be known as the painter of sunflowers. In a letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh boldly declared, “The sunflower is mine”.The other painters at the time thought that sunflowers were coarse and unrefined but that was exactly what Vincent was attracted to: he saw eternal andfascinatingbeauty in those imperfections. For the artist, sunflowers also communicated gratitude and happiness, radiating with the energy and vitality of the sun.
Vincent van Gogh wanted to be known as the painter of sunflowers. In a letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh boldly declared, “The sunflower is mine”.
The other painters at the time thought that sunflowers were coarse and unrefined but that was exactly what Vincent was attracted to: he saw eternal andfascinatingbeauty in those imperfections. For the artist, sunflowers also communicated gratitude and happiness, radiating with the energy and vitality of the sun.
Yellow was a favourite colour of Vincent Van Gogh that lived in most of his paintings - sunflowers, wheat ears, landscapes at harvest time, and in the light of the sun. From the stay in Arles onward, yellow became increasingly important in the paintings of the artist.
It was in Arles, in the Yellow House, where the great sunflower period of Vincent van Gogh began: “I’m thinking of decorating my studio with half a dozen paintings of sunflowers,” he said at the time.
Vincent celebrated the completion of his Sunflowers with a shopping spree. The artist started his series of Sunflowers on Monday 20 August 1888 and finished on the Friday. Right after, he went for a shopping expedition in town, after which he returned with a black velvet jacket and a famous large yellow straw hat. Both items appear to be hanging behind his bed in the painting Van Gogh made of his bedroom two months later.
The first series, executed in Paris in 1887, depicts the flowers lying on the ground, while the second set, made a year later in Arles, shows a bouquet of sunflowers in a vase.
One of the original works of “Sunflowers” is part of the collection of the National Gallery of London and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once asked to see Van Gogh’s chrysanthemums. Nobody thought to correct her.
Vincent was very conscious about using the complementary color scheme in hispaintingsto achieve harmony throughout each piece. Almost 90% of his paintings used blue and yellow as complementary colors. “Arranging colours in a painting,” Van Gogh wrote to his sister Wil, “to make them shimmer and stand out through their contrasts, that’s something like arranging jewels or designing costumes.“Yellow was one of artist’s favourite ones. He used bright yellows early in his career, adding other hues like ochre and cadmium yellow later on.
Vincent was very conscious about using the complementary color scheme in hispaintingsto achieve harmony throughout each piece. Almost 90% of his paintings used blue and yellow as complementary colors. “Arranging colours in a painting,” Van Gogh wrote to his sister Wil, “to make them shimmer and stand out through their contrasts, that’s something like arranging jewels or designing costumes.”
Yellow was one of artist’s favourite ones. He used bright yellows early in his career, adding other hues like ochre and cadmium yellow later on.
During their 1st meeting in Paris in 1887, Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin exchanged a couple of paintings: Van Gogh gave his two studies of sunflowers and Gauguin his artwork “On the Shore of the Lake, Martinique (Negresses)” from 1887.
Van Gogh did not actually paint the flowers in a pot because it was not steady enough to hold the heavy flowers and would have toppled over. It’s assumed that the artist had a similar pot in his kitchen-studio to serve as his model, but the 15 sunflowers were not actually placed in it.
Van Gogh had a deep admiration for Claude Monet; therefore, it’s possible to see someinfluencessuch as powerful and expressive color palette and quality of impassioned drawing that are much more apparent in the flower paintings.Monet painted a vase loaded with sunflowers about seven or eight years before Vincent van Gogh painted his series. Yet Monet focused more on the composition as a whole, and unlike Van Gogh, he painted the sunflowers with no sign of decay.The flower that always turns towards the sun became a signature of the short yet truly remarkable career of Vincent van Gogh.After the tragic day, Vincent’s doctor, Paul Gachet, made a symbolic drawing inscribed “Le Tournesol” (The Sunflower), as well as planting sunflowers on the grave, while as a tribute to his lost friend, fellow artist Paul Gauguin grew sunflowers in Polynesia as well.
Van Gogh had a deep admiration for Claude Monet; therefore, it’s possible to see someinfluencessuch as powerful and expressive color palette and quality of impassioned drawing that are much more apparent in the flower paintings.
Monet painted a vase loaded with sunflowers about seven or eight years before Vincent van Gogh painted his series. Yet Monet focused more on the composition as a whole, and unlike Van Gogh, he painted the sunflowers with no sign of decay.
The flower that always turns towards the sun became a signature of the short yet truly remarkable career of Vincent van Gogh.
After the tragic day, Vincent’s doctor, Paul Gachet, made a symbolic drawing inscribed “Le Tournesol” (The Sunflower), as well as planting sunflowers on the grave, while as a tribute to his lost friend, fellow artist Paul Gauguin grew sunflowers in Polynesia as well.
In 1901, Gauguin, in Tahiti, painted four still-lifes of sunflowers resting on a chair as a salute to his long-departed friend Van Gogh. Gauguin had grown the flowers with seeds imported from France.
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A week before starting on the paintings, Van Gogh drew sunflowers in the garden of a bathhouse in the brothel quarter.
Leo Jansen, a curator at the Van Gogh Museum, says that the public is hardly aware that Van Gogh created a series of paintings of sunflowers: “For nine out of 10 people I tell, it’s news.” Martin Bailey, who published a book “The Sunflowers Are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece” also agrees with this opinion: “A lot of people know one of the Sunflowers, and don’t even realize there was a series.“Therefore, I highly recommend perusing the rest of these 17 facts related to thesunnyflower that brought an eternal light to the unbearably difficult and deeply painful life of Vincent van Gogh.
Leo Jansen, a curator at the Van Gogh Museum, says that the public is hardly aware that Van Gogh created a series of paintings of sunflowers: “For nine out of 10 people I tell, it’s news.” Martin Bailey, who published a book “The Sunflowers Are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece” also agrees with this opinion: “A lot of people know one of the Sunflowers, and don’t even realize there was a series.”
Therefore, I highly recommend perusing the rest of these 17 facts related to thesunnyflower that brought an eternal light to the unbearably difficult and deeply painful life of Vincent van Gogh.
After Vincent’s tragic demise, his doctor, Paul Gachet, drew a poignant single sunflower. For the ones close to Vincent, the flower that turns towards the sun had already become inextricably linked with the artist.
Van Gogh used to create the vivid sunflowers in his art with a bright, intense yellow cadmium pigment that was first developed in the mid-19th century.
Van Gogh shifted his colour palette towards a lighter yellow palette starting in 1888. The researchers believe that it happened due to illness/medication leading to “yellow vision” or influence from the French Impressionists while working in Paris.
Jo Bonger, Theo’s widow, had a romantic affair with the Dutch painter Isaac Israëls in the mid-1890s. In 1918 she lent him the Sunflowers with a yellow background. Israëls hung it in his sitting room and included it in paintings with various models (but not Jo).
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