Les Tournesols

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Four Withered Sunflowers Vincent van Gogh

Sunflowers are the subject of some of van Gogh’s most well known paintings. He created the first series of sunflower paintings while living in Paris in 1887. This group of paintings depicts cut sunflowers lying across a tabletop. The second series of sunflower paintings includes the famous still-lifes of sunflowers in vases which he painted in Arles in 1888.

“It’s a type of painting that changes its aspect a little, which grows in richness the more you look at it. Besides, you know that Gauguin likes them extraordinarily. He said to me about them, among other things: ‘that— that’s . . . the flower’. You know that (Georges) Jeannin has the peony, (Ernest) Quost has the hollyhock, but I have the sunflower, in a way.”
- from a letter written by Vincent van Gogh to his brother, Theo, 1889

Sunflowers form a unique connection between van Gogh and Gauguin. It was van Gogh’s dream to start an art colony in Arles, based initia…