Vincent van Gogh | Sunflowers series

Sunflowers (original title, in French: Tournesols) are the subject of two series of still life paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh.

The earlier series, executed in Paris in 1887, depicts the flowers lying on the ground, while the second set, executed a year later in Arles, shows bouquets of sunflowers in a vase.

In the artist's mind both sets were linked by the name of his friend Paul Gauguin, who acquired two of the Paris versions.

Vincent van Gogh | Sunflowers, 1887 | National Gallery, London

Paul Gauguin | Van Gogh che dipinge i girasoli, 1888, Van Gogh Museum

About eight months later van Gogh hoped to welcome and to impress Gauguin again with Sunflowers, now part of the painted Décoration for the Yellow House that he prepared for the guestroom of his home in Arles, where Gauguin was supposed to stay.

After Gauguin's departure, van Gogh imagined the two major versions as wings of the Berceuse Triptych, and finally he included them in his Les XX in Bruxelles exhibit.

The Paris Sunflowers

Little is known of Van Gogh's activities during the two years he lived with his brother, Theo, in Paris, 1886-1888. The fact that he had painted Sunflowers already is only revealed in the spring of 1889, when Gauguin claimed one of the Arles versions in exchange for studies he had left behind after leaving Arles for Paris.

Vincent van Gogh | Sunflowers, 1887 | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Van Gogh was upset and replied that Gauguin had absolutely no right to make this request:

"I am definitely keeping my sunflowers in question.

He has two of them already, let that hold him. And if he is not satisfied with the exchange he has made with me, he can take back his little Martinique canvas, and his self-portrait sent me from Brittany, at the same time giving me back both my portrait and the two sunflower canvases which he has taken to Paris. So if he ever broaches this subject again, I've told you just how matters stand".

The two Sunflowers in question show two buttons each; one of them was preceded by a small study, and a fourth large canvas combines both compositions.

These were Van Gogh's first paintings with "nothing but sunflowers"-yet, he had already included sunflowers in still life and landscape earlier.

The Arles Sunflowers

In a letter to Theo, dating from 21 or 22 August 1888, Vincent wrote: "I'm painting with the gusto of a Marseillais eating bouillabaisse, which won’t surprise you when it's a question of painting large sunflowers".

Vincent van Gogh | Roses and Sunflowers, 1886 |Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany

At this time he had three paintings on the go, and intended to do more; as he explained to his brother: "in the hope of living in a studio of our own with Gauguin, I'd like to do a decoration for the studio. Nothing but large sunflowers".

Leaving aside the first two versions, all Arlesian Sunflowers are painted on size 30 canvases.

The initial versions, August 1888

None meets the descriptions supplied by van Gogh himself in his announcement of the series in every detail.

The first version differs in size, is painted on a size 20 canvas-not on a size 15 canvas as indicated-and all the others differ in the number of flowers depicted from van Gogh's announcement.

The second was evidently enlarged and the initial composition altered by insertion of the two flowers lying in the foreground, center and right.

Neither the third nor the fourth shows the dozen or 14 flowers indicated by the artist, but more-fifteen or sixteen.

These alterations are executed wet-in-wet and therefore considered genuine rework-even the more so as they are copied to the repetitions of January 1889; there is no longer a trace of later alterations, at least in this aspect.

Both repetitions of the 4th version are no longer in their original state.

In the Amsterdam version a strip of wood was added at the top-probably by van Gogh himself.

The Tokyo version, however, was enlarged on all sides with strips of canvas, which were added at a later time-presumably by the first owner, Émile Schuffenecker.

The series is perhaps van Gogh's best known and most widely reproduced.

In recent years there has been debate regarding the authenticity of one of the paintings, and it has been suggested that this version may have been the work of Émile Schuffenecker or of Paul Gauguin.

Most experts, however, conclude that the work is genuine.

In January 1889, when Vincent had just finished the first repetitions of the Berceuse and the Sunflowers pendants, he told Theo: "I picture to myself these same canvases between those of the sunflowers, which would thus form torches or candelabra beside them, the same size, and so the whole would be composed of seven or nine canvases".

A definite hint for the arrangement of the triptych is supplied by Van Gogh's sketch in a letter of July 1889.

Later that year, Vincent selected both versions for his display at Les XX, 1890. | © Wikipedia