Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh

Sunflowers (original title, in French: Tournesols) are the subject of two series of still life paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. The earlier series executed in Paris in 1887 gives the flowers lying on the ground, while the second set executed a year later in Arles shows bouquets of sunflowers in a vase. In the artist's mind both sets were linked by the name of his friend Paul Gauguin, who acquired two of the Paris versions. About eight months later Van Gogh hoped to welcome and to impress Gauguin again with Sunflowers, now part of the painted décoration he prepared for the guestroom of his Yellow House where Gauguin was supposed to stay in Arles. After Gauguin's departure Van Gogh imagined the two major versions as wings of the Berceuse Triptych, and finally he included them in his exhibit at Les XX in Bruxelles.

As Van Gogh anticipated in 1889, the Sunflowers finally became his, and served - combined with self-portraits - as his artistical arms and alter ego up to the present day: no retrospective Van Gogh exhibition since 1901 voluntarily missed to include them, and a wealth of forgeries as well as record-setting price paid at auction acknowledges their public success: Perhaps, because Van Gogh's Sunflowers are more than his or him - they may be considered, as Gauguin put it, the flower.
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Sunflowers, c.1888 Framed Art Print
van Gogh, Vincent

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A look at and comparison of the Sunflowers paintings by Vincent Van Gogh.

excerpt from the site
Upon looking at these paintings one begins to notice aspects that seem to flow
from one piece to another. The colors are vibrant and express emotions typically associated with the life of sunflowers: bright yellows of the full bloom to arid browns of wilting and death; all of the stages woven through these polar opposites are presented. Perhaps this very technique is what draws one into the painting; the fulfillment of seeing all angles of the spectrum of life and in turn reaching a deeper understanding of how all living things are tied together.

Van Gogh Painting Sunflowers, 1888 Giclee Print

Gauguin, Paul
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excerpt form site
The series of paintings was made possible by the innovations in manufactured pigments in the 19th Century. Without the vibrancy of the new colours, such as chrome yellow, Van Gogh may never have achieved the intensity of Sunflowers.

Print and color your own Sunflowers!