Sunflowers

As I've mentioned before, Vincent van Gogh is one of my favorite artists. Some of his most famous paintings are those of sunflowers. There are a total of twelve paintings in his sunflower series, but seven in particular are especially famous. Those seven are the ones he painted while he lived in Arles during 1888 and 1889. 

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While he lived in Arles, Vincent had an artist friend named Gauguin who needed a place to live. Vincent welcomed Gauguin into his home and proposed that Gauguin move in and be his room mate. Gauguin gratefully excepted. The two were excited about this chapter in their lives, especially since they were both artists and had great plans to share a studio and work together. 

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Vincent wrote in a letter to his sister that in preparation to Gauguin coming to stay with him, he wanted to decorate Gauguin's room for him with large paintings of sunflowers. Why sunflowers? There are three popular theories behind why he chose sunflowers of all things: 1.) Vincent wrote in a letter while preparing for Gauguin to his brother, Theo, that he remembered a restaurant next to Theo's shop that had paintings of sunflowers in the window. Vincent continues the letter talking about decorating for Gauguin with flowers. Perhaps the paintings in the restaurant window inspired Vincent. 2.)  It is rumored that sunflowers were Vincent's mother's favorite flowers. Most of his life Vincent was close to his mother and some believe that the flowers were painted in her memory. 3.) Vincent and Gauguin had exchanged paintings before and while there is no proof, Gauguin supposedly showed favor toward Vincent's flowers. If this is true, it would make sense that he'd paint flowers to decorate Gauguin's room. Perhaps one or more of these theories is the reason(s) why Vincent painted the sunflowers, or perhaps we don't know the real reason. For all we know, Vincent may just have liked sunflowers. Whatever the reason, they are beautiful paintings and have been enjoyed by not only Gauguin, but people all over the world even generations later. 

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Vincent always favored his sunflowers over his other paintings. Even years later, near his death, Vincent wrote a letter to Theo describing his sunflowers and his love for them. A couple of years ago I was inspired by these paintings and decided to do something similar. Here's what I did. 

 

try to ignore my reflection

I used oil pastels just as Vincent did with his sunflowers and I tried to mimic his brush strokes. He used mostly horizontal brush strokes in the subjects of his paintings and the tabletop, but switched to shorter vertical strokes for the background. I tried to do the same. I also noticed that Vincent outlined many of his vases, so I did the same. He also had strong highlights, which is another characteristic I kept in my painting. As you can see in Vincent's paintings, the tabletop, vase, and flowers are all very similar colors. Again, I did the same in my painting. I like to think that I captured Vincent van Gogh's spirit in this painting and that he would be honored that his paintings inspired me to do this study of him. People have commented to me that this painting reminds them of van Gogh before I tell them that I painted it during a study of van Gogh, so I think it turned out to be a success.