Vincent Van Gogh’s Paintings of Sunflowers

Of Vincent Van Gogh’s many series of paintings and periods in his career, his most famous is arguable that of the Sunflowers. Paintings of sunflowers have become synonymous with Van Gogh and his work in the latter part of his life. Many artists have tried to duplicate his technique over the years with originals and copies of the fabled flowers adorning galleries, offices and homes around the world.

The Sunflower series began in the years Van Gogh spent seeking his place in the artistic world in France. The first few paintings were created with the sole purpose of decorating Paul Gauguin’s home. Despite the volume of work in the series, most of the Sunflowers paintings were composed between 1888 and 1889 during Van Gogh’s time spent in Arles. The earliest works were created in Paris in 1887, where Van Gogh painted sunflowers with single flowers and clips rather than in vases.

Sunflowers - 1887

What makes the sunflower images so unique in contrast to any of his other paintings or those of other painters is the incredible attention to the aesthetics of the flower rather than the physical details. Van Gogh’s own use of yellow in the latter part of his life is most intensively accentuated in these images. However, through Van Gogh’s still lifes of Sunflowers, he also displayed the images of death through browns and then combined and contrasted the two, pitting vibrant life against dry and brittle death. Through the simple painting of flowers in still life, Van Gogh was able to describe and explore all the intricate aspects of both life and death and their relation to each other.

It is the use of balance and control of the observer’s eye, so deftly utilized in many of his paintings, that makes the Sunflower series so unique. By creating a careful balance not only in tonal range but in composition and in theme with life and death, yet drawing the viewers eyes to numerous locations, Van Gogh is able to entrance his admirers with such vibrant paintings of simple flowers.

Sunflowers - 1888

Many of the pictures in Van Gogh’s Sunflowers series are almost identical with the exception of a few small details. The layout and positioning of the flowers is often identical or very similar to any of a number of other paintings. If one were to combine two of them, they might find only superficial differences.

For example, common differences included the varying petal composition in each painting. Some paintings contained larger, bulkier petals than others, while others shaped intricate “V” patterns. The eye of each flower would occasionally differ in color as well. While one might display the yellow tints of life, another might contain the traditional black of a dying sunflower. The same technique was used for leaves. Occasionally, the only difference between one painting and the next might be that one displayed the petals as a vibrant yellow and the next with a tinge of wilting brown.

Ironically, the composition of Van Go’s sunflowers, so dependent on his use of color, might not have been possible only a century earlier. Because of the development of new paints and new colors in those paints, Van Gogh was able to utilize pigments such as Chrome Yellow that few other painters had ever had access to.

The History of Vincent Van Gogh’s Images

Vincent Van Gogh did not begin painting until 1880 when he was already 27 years old. He began at the most basic levels, working from beginners’ handbooks such as “Cours de dessin”. After two years he started looking for commissions to keep his art career afloat. He found them in his Uncle, Cornelias Marinus, the owner of a world famous gallery in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, his work did not prove to live up to his uncle’s standards and even after a second commission, Van Gogh was unable to impress him. Thus the earliest VanGogh paintings were considered failures.

Potato Eaters

However, despite his failure to impress Marinus, Van Gogh continued painting, shutting himself into a studio and working tirelessly to improve his technique. In 1882, he began painting what many would consider his first masterpieces, the single person and item, black and white studies that led to his later revelations. The next year, he started working on multi-figure paintings. These however, were largely destroyed after one of his brothers commented on their lack of appeal and liveliness.

In 1883, after more than a year spent improving his technique and painting with the support of his brother Theo, Van Gogh visited famous Hague scholars such as Weissenbruch and Blommers to learn more about the techniques and technical aspects of painting. It was in Nuenen that Vincent Van Gogh’s full size paintings were started. The Potato Eaters, painted in 1885, is considered by many to be his first full sized masterpiece. Two other large canvas paintings, The Old Tower and The Cottage, survive from this time period. Unfortunately, he destroyed many of the rest.

After more failures progressing in the art world, Vincent Van Gogh came to the conclusion that his short comings were a result of technical problems, not artistic talent. So, he left for Paris to study further and better improve his technique. While in Paris, Van Gogh learned much about the impressionist movement that had the art world so entranced. He did not, however, progress much himself until after moving to Arles.

In Arles, Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings reverted back to many of the more traditional theories of painting that had intrigued him as a youth. He began painting series of images that reflected particular subjects for a given purpose. The first of these, Flowering Orchards was painted in 1888 and depicted series of three paintings. In a series of single figure paintings, he created The Roulin Family and after Gauguin had made the move to Arles to live beside Vincent Van Gogh, painting of his famous The Decoration for the Yellow House series was commenced.

Le Moulin de la Galette - 1886

The final period of Van Gogh’s life, those years spent in the Saint-Remy asylum are marked by his constant use of swirls and spiral patterns. Starry Night is arguable the most famous painting he composed during the year he spent there. He also painted numerous works depicting the wheat field outside the window of his cell, many of which have been sold for exorbitant prices.

His self portraits are another major portion of his life’s work. While pics of Van Gogh are few, the single image that has been recovered, originally taken Victor Morin, was believed to be used as the basis for the dozen or more self portraits and Van Go pictures. This single stock photo of Van Gogh has been authenticated as the man’s likeness and even the portrait of Vincent with a bandaged ear is believed to be drawn from this very photo. The close up of Van Gogh portrayed in the image is the identical angle and time frame of the numerous images he painted of himself in those final years of his life.

During his lifetime, Van Gogh is said to have gone through numerous stages. His early years were spent merely understanding the basic mechanics of the paintbrush, creating still life drawings and paintings and crafting his now famous single figure black and whites. His years in Paris, eventually jaded by the impressionism exhibits and galleries of the day that saturated the city, were spent reimagining his style and in Arles he began to paint the Post-Impressionist images that led to some of his greatest masterpieces, punctuated by his time in Saint-Remy.

Self Portraits by Vincent Van Gogh

In the years between 1886 and 1889, Van Gogh’s time in Paris in Arles, more than two dozen separate self-portraits were painted. As some of his most famous images, these portraits have been debated for years, scholars unsure of his purpose in painting them. The composition itself is believed to be derived from a single photograph taken in 1886 that directly resembles the composition of many of those self-portraits.

Vincent Van Gogh’s self-portrait painting has been openly compared to that of Rembrandt. However, Van Gogh completed his portraits in a markedly shorter time than Rembrandt, repeatedly painting the same pose with varying displays and colors.

Van Gogh’s Varying Self Portrait Styles

Self Portrait (Blue) - 1887

Each of the self-portraits displays the same intensity in the eyes, focusing intently outward, with some degree of unspoken emotion. However, the rest of the composition varies dramatically from one painting to the next. Each painting is composed of differing styles, ranging from his early elementary styles to the Impressionist and Neo-impressionist styles of his Paris years and beyond.

Each painting utilizes a solid background of varying color. Never does Van Gogh paint himself in landscape, nor does he often utilize any form of props. There are two exceptions to this rule though, including the portrait of Van Gogh painting on a canvas and the first self portrait with a bandaged ear, painted in 1889 by Van Gogh. Additionally, the change in attire has been noted from the earliest self portraits to those painted in Arles and Saint-Remy.

While his early portraits, depicting his Paris years, are often of a well-kempt, powerful looking Van Gogh in a nice suit, his latter portraits depict a man who is often missing something. From the portrait depicting Van Gogh as a Buddhist monk with his hair, to the painting of Van Gogh clean shaven or the two depicting Van Gogh’s bandaged ear, each image shows Van Gogh missing a small part of his identity, possibly seeking something else instead.

Purpose of the Van Gogh Portraits

Self portrait with bandage - 1889

Numerous reasons have been attached for the prolific use of the self-portrait by Van Gogh in his craft. On one hand, there have been theories from critics such as James Risser that the portraits represented some form of self-analysis. It is commonly believed that Van Gogh suffered from severe Manic Depression, evidenced in his combined bouts of manic outbursts and self-mutilation – including when Van Gogh cut off his ear - and depressive seclusions from society, evidenced by the self-inflicted gunshot wound that took his life.

In each of his self-portraits, the intensity of emotion present in the eyes is contrasted with some form of color or deformity in the face. The purposeful painting of the bandaged ear in two of his self portraits, especially in the self-portrait with him smoking a pipe depict a depressed, self aware man, unhappy with his life and his actions, possibly in response to his depressive state.

Van Gogh’s Buddhist Self-Portrait

Self Portrait - 1887

These paintings could very well have been a combination of self-critique and despair over having lost control of his life and his actions. A painting that reveals another deepened aspect of Van Gogh, displaying a lifestyle that would have contrasted with that of his youth and young adulthood is Self Portrait Dedicated to Gauguin. This painting, completed in Arles in 1888 depicts Van Gogh as a bald headed Buddhist monk. He describes the painting himself as a “portrait of a Bronze…worshipping the eternal Buddha”. The calm displayed in this painting depicts the ideal of a “calm monk” with absolute control, control that Van Gogh sought for most of his life.

During this time, Van Gogh was berated constantly by the wavering insecurity of his own sanity and the image of him as a Buddhist monk displays how he was capable of maintaining some vestige of control.

A More Technical Cause

There is of course the possibility that the majority of Van Gogh’s self-portraits were composed simply as technical experiments, allowing Van Gogh to attempt new styles and techniques. Van Gogh stated repeatedly that he could not often find models that suited his needs and so it is possible that he became his own model. The varying degrees of style and attention to certain details that make up the bulk of Van Gogh’s portraits carefully parallel his own progression into, through, and out of his Impressionist years in Paris.