Vincent Van Gogh flowers

Most of us know Vincent Van Gogh as a tortured suicide and yet he produced many beautiful flower studies including his famous Sunflowers. During the ten years that Vincent van Gogh painted, he depicted many different genres; portraits, landscapes, and still lifes. Some of those still lifes were of bottles, chairs, shoes, or famously, flowers. From Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, to his Irises, or his Roses, he brought life and emotion to his work – taking a subject matter that has been painted since the beginning of art and putting his unique perspective on it. Van Gogh painted Vase with Honesty in 1884, and would continue to paint flowers throughout his career.

Van Gogh’s flowers from 1887, including Vase with Lilacs, Daisies and Anemones, show flowers in a blue vase set against a soft blue and purple background. This was a period where van Gogh consciously was trying to add color to his painting. He wrote “I painted almost nothing but flowers to accustom myself to a colour other than grey, that’s to say pink, soft or bright green, light blue, violet, yellow, orange, fine red.”

When van Gogh was painting in Arles, in the south of France, he was looking forward to his friend Gauguin coming to live and paint with him. In anticipation for his arrival van Gogh painted Sunflowers to decorate the house. Sunflowers became a series with many canvases depicting the same subject matter. Painted in 1888 and 1889, van Gogh’s Sunflowers show a yellow vase on a table containing yellow sunflowers in different stages of life. Some are just blooming, some are open and vibrant, and some are withering and dead. Gauguin appreciated the gesture, and displayed some of van Gogh’s Sunflower paintings in his bedroom.

In the first week he was in the asylum in St Remy Vincent painted the irises in the asylums garden. Unfortunately, just a few months later, van Gogh would die. He left behind paintings like this, showing the hope he had, the paint barely dry, as a reminder of the happiness he felt when he was in good health.

This information is from the Vincent Van Gogh Gallery.