Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh

Often, a work of art becomes so intensely famous that it can obscure people to its original meaning and context. This is the case with Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh. The version that is in the National Gallery in London was painted by Van Gogh in Arles in August 1888 in Southern France. Fifteen sunflowers spring out of a quaint earthenware pot with a background that is blazing yellow. Some of the flowers may be found to be perky and fresh and they are surrounded by halos of petals that resemble a flame; while others are beginning to droop. This is a powerful painting. Van Gogh has used just three tints of yellow and has achieved total harmony with that stroke. This simple motif has appealed in a profound way to many people. Van Gogh started painting still of flowers in order to experiment mainly with colour. Another motivation was that flowers’ stills sold well, commercially. He got inspired to introduce more colour into those stills after observing the colourful and fresh paintings of the Impressionists like Renoir and Monet in Paris, France. He began these stills with traditional colours, but as he progressed; he experimented with extreme contrasts in colour. The flowers’ painting that has been placed in National Gallery in London since 1924 has become so popular that more than twenty-six thousand postcards have been sold from among the entire collection of sunflowers painted by Van Gogh. Actually, many among the five million people who visit National Gallery every year are not aware that this painting belongs to a series of four sunflower stills which Van Gogh made in less than a week’s time during summer of 1888. He did those indoors as cold northerly winds restricted him from working outdoors. The first among this collection now belongs to a private owner. It has three orange-yellow blooms in a green-glazed pot that is set against a turquoise background. It was last shown in public in 1948 at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The second among this collection has three flowers in a pot along with three more lying on the table in the foreground. This is set in front of a wall with royal blue colour. This particular painting was partially destroyed during the American bombardment of Ashiya, a Japanese town, in 1945. This painting is quite similar to the one that is placed in the National Gallery but it has fourteen sunflowers with turquoise background and it has now been placed in Neue Pinakothek Gallery in Munich, Germany. After these four sunflowers were executed, Van Gogh created three more variations or replicas; one of them has been loaned by Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam to the National Gallery in London. The first sunflower was painted during the summer of 1886 and a couple of years later; he began painting sunflowers to brighten up his collection. His contemporaries were working on all kinds of flowers but he chose to go with sunflowers. Other painters may have thought that sunflowers would look unrefined or coarse. Van Gogh wanted that coarse touch in his work. They went on to become his signature work and Van Gogh realized that he had finally created something very important and was glad that he did not paint hollyhocks or peonies. He managed to work with a resonant motif, that he could call his own.