Vincent

I cannot walk past a sunflower without pausing to look at the flower and its stalks and think of Vincent van Gogh. He painted a dozen different versions of Sunflowers in three series. There were arrangements of clippings on the floor, some of fifteen in a vase and other just three. Within each set, the layouts are rather similar. Innovations in manufactured pigments in the nineteenth century brought vibrant new colours, such as chrome yellow, making it possible for Van Gogh to capture the intensity of the sunflower petals.

His first series was done in 1887 after he had left Holland for Paris. These paintings showed the simplistic beauty of sunflower clippings, and at least two of the pieces were intended to decorate his friend Paul Gauguin's bedroom. Seven paintings in his two different Sunflowers-in-Vase series painted in Arles in southern France during 1888 and 1889.

Gauguin joined Van Gogh in Arles and they shared a studio, that image reflected in the painting of The Yellow House. Together they had hopes of starting up a new artist colony in that area. 

Self portrait of Paul Gauguin a gift to Vincent. 

In preparation for Gauguin's arrival Vincent painted the remainder of the Sunflowers-in-Vase series for display in their studio. Their relationship lasted two months before each going in a different direction. Gauguin left for Polynesia leaving Vincent in Arles. Vincent and Paul never saw each other again.

In just over a decade Vincent produced 860 oil paintings and more than 1300 watercolours, drawings, sketches and prints. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has the world's largest collection of his works, comprised of 200 paintings, 400 drawings, and 700 of his letters.

Vincent van Gogh was born on 30 March 1853 near Breda in the southern Netherlands. He died of gunshot wounds at the age of 37 on 29 July 1890 in Arles, the south of France. His reason for suicide remains unclear, like pages torn from a book; there is only theory and speculation. 

My inspired illustration of sunflowers 2015