Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers
Vincent Van Gogh, 1888
Many artists have their own personal favorite motives, that they paint numerous times. I am not here talking about silk screens and other things that made the numerous images generated by e.g. Andy Warhol famous. Rather I am talking about truly painting the same type of motive over and over again. It can be done for numerous reasons, from an interest in the specific subject to an exploration of e.g. the effects of light.
Sometimes, the study makes the subject so tied to the specific artist that they are hard to separate. Paintings by other artists of the same motive seems less relevant. Claude Monet for instance owned the Water Lily. He painted them in his garden in Giverny hundreds of times. However, even though it was also painted by Monet, the sunflower belongs to Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh took a liking to the flower, which he had also seen Gauguin paint, and created a whole series of paintings depicting the sunflower. The most famous among these very similar works is probably Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers painted by Van Gogh in 1888.
Depth and colors
There is a depth to the paintings that allow them to grow on you and expand in the expressive impression the longer you gaze upon it. Add to that the thick brush strokes of Van Gogh that allows the flowers to reach out of the canvas towards you, and the effect is almost hypnotic. At the same time, the richness of the colors, typical of Van Gogh but no less extraordinary for that, speaks to you and brings across the warmth and almost joyous nature of the flowers.
Van Gogh himself was also very please with these paintings. He wrote to his brother Theo:
“It is a kind of painting that rather changes in character, and takes on a richness the longer you look at it. Besides, you know, Gauguin likes them extraordinarily. He said to me among other things – ‘That…it’s…the flower.’ You know that the peony is Jeannin’s, the hollyhock belongs to Quost, but the sunflower is somewhat my own.”
Indeed his own it was. Both Monet and Gauguin painted Sunflowers as well, but neither reached the richness and depth achieved on several occasions by Van Goghs work. This sublime mastery of this motive made it his own.
Van Gogh planned a dozen sunflower works to be displayed in the Yellow House which he and Gauguin would use for a studio.
“I’d like to do a decoration for the studio. Nothing but large Sunflowers. Next door to your shop, in the restaurant, as you know, there’s such a beautiful decoration of flowers there; I still remember the big sunflower in the window. Well, if I carry out this plan there’ll be a dozen or so panels. The whole thing will therefore be a symphony in blue and yellow. I work on it all these mornings, from sunrise. Because the flowers wilt quickly and it’s a matter of doing the whole thing in one go.”
A Legacy
Unfortunately, he never made it quite that far as the seasons, as well as his later suicide, did not allow him to finish the entire task.
Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers however remain among the most celebrated works of one of the worlds most celebrated artists of course also means that such Sunflowers do not come cheap. Indeed, one version was sold at Christies in 1987 for USD 40 million. At that time, this was a record setting sum to be paid for a painting. The Vase With Fifteen Sunflowers can be found at the National Gallery in London, England.
Other Featurd Works by Van Gogh
Cafe Terrace at Night
Vincent Van Gogh, 1888
Starry Night
Vincent Van Gogh, 1889