Van Gogh’s paintings of Sunflowers are among his most famous. He did them in Arles, in the south of France, in 1888 and 1889. Vincent painted a total of five large canvases with sunflowers in a vase, with 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 colour, without any loss of eloquence.
The sunflower paintings had a special significance for Van Gogh: they communicated ‘gratitude’, he wrote.
Just like other painters working at the time, Vincent made flower still lifes. But he did things a little differently. After practising with different flowers, he chose a specific variety: the sunflower. His fellow painters thought that sunflowers were perhaps somewhat coarse and unrefined. But this is exactly what Vincent liked, and he also enjoyed painting flowers that had gone to seed. He gave sunflowers the lead role in several paintings.
Vincent knew that his sunflower paintings were special. As did other people. After he died, friends brought sunflowers with them to his funeral. Sunflowers became synonymous with Vincent, just as he had hoped.
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