Sunflowers for Gaugin
'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.' It was August, the sunflowers were blooming, and Van Gogh desperately wanted to capture them in a series of 12 pictures. Because the flowers wilted so quickly, he worked on his canvases every day.

He painted the series to decorate the room where his friend, Paul Gauguin would stay when he arrived in Arles. He chose this subject because Gauguin had previously admired his paintings of sunflowers run to seed.

In the end, Vincent executed four sunflower still lifes; however, he felt only two were good enough to hang in Gauguin's bedroom. He was later to paint three copies of them, one of which is the version in the Van Gogh Museum.

Above all, lots of yellow
In one of the two paintings that hung in Gauguin's room, the sunflowers are depicted against a contrasting blue background. The other, like the Van Gogh Museum's version, has a yellow background, making it almost monochrome. It is mainly executed in shades of yellow and ocher, with some green for the leaves and the stems, and a patch of red or blue. Earlier in his career Van Gogh had created a similar harmony in yellow in his Still life with quinces and lemons

Sunflowers can be seen at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Source: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Master of painting, Vincent van Gogh