Sunflowers

Today is 125th anniversary of Van Gogh's death. DailyArt would like to commemorate this day with one of the greatest masterpieces of all time - Sunflowers from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. We highly recommend you visiting their website, Facebook and Twitter because the museum has prepared some specials today.

Van Gogh looked forward with impatience to the arrival of his friend Gauguin at the ‘Yellow House’ and decided to paint a series of decorative still lifes of sunflowers for his fellow artist. He hoped that the ‘simplicity’ he achieved in them would impress Gauguin. Van Gogh ultimately completed four still lifes before the end of the sunflower season, two of which were large in size. He made the bouquets steadily larger and eventually changed the dominant blue and yellow colours for ‘the three chrome yellows, yellow ochre and Veronese green and nothing else’, he wrote on 22 January 1889. He demonstrated in this way that it was possible to create an image with numerous variations of a single colour, without any sacrifice of eloquence or form. Gauguin thought the final painting was extremely successful, describing it as ‘a perfect example of a style that is completely Vincent’. Van Gogh had already painted a new version during his friend’s stay and Gauguin later asked for one as a gift, which Vincent was reluctant to provide. He later produced two loose copies, however, one of which is now in the Van Gogh Museum.

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