Sunflowers

"Sunflowers" is the composition that Vincent Van Gogh is mostly identified with. It was really a masterpiece and Van Gogh painted this as part of a series of paintings meant to decorate his own studio. This 1888 masterpiece now holds an iconic status not only in the art world but also in modern popular culture. The first and foremost paintings of sunflowers by Van Gogh were produced in Paris in 1886, but the series of which the Sunflowers masterpiece is a part was created in Arles during the summer of 1888. Van Gogh used the numerous shades of yellow paint to exploit the expressive potential of one color. The bold brushwork demonstrates the speed and intensity with which Van Gogh worked, but an overall stability is created through the near-symmetry of the composition. The careful balance of the work can also be seen in the individual sunflowers, whose thick centers are countered by the thinner paint in the outer areas. Van Gogh's Sunflowers depicts his desire to create art to be enjoyed, but the outward simplicity of the work is underscored by a subtle inner depth. The painting's celebration of natural beauty incorporates awareness that this beauty is ultimately transient. They resemble Van Gogh's own life in many ways, which was dedicated to paint natural beauty but ended tragically from suicide at the age of thirty-seven. Van Gogh said while working on Sunflowers,"I am working with the enthusiasm of a man from Marseilles eating bouillabaisse, which shouldn't come as a surprise to you because I am busy painting huge sunflowers." Van Gogh worked on the Sunflowers in August and the sunflowers were blooming but flowers wilted so quickly, he worked on his canvases every day. Van Gogh worked on the Sunflowers in order to decorate the room where Paul Gauguin would stay when he arrived in Arles because his friend had admired his paintings where sunflowers were exhibited in full blossom. Van Gogh painted four of sunflower paintings but in the end he felt only two were good enough to hang in Gauguin's bedroom.