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    Van Gogh - The Sunflowers

    Uploaded by

    Rennik-Jan Neggers
    a short analysis of the painting 'the sunflowers' by Van Gogh. It talks about the symbolism, the painting techniques, and the background story of his personal life.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Van Gogh - The Sunflowers

    Uploaded by

    Rennik-Jan Neggers
    169 views1 page
    a short analysis of the painting 'the sunflowers' by Van Gogh. It talks about the symbolism, the painting techniques, and the background story of his personal life.

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    © © All Rights Reserved

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    a short analysis of the painting 'the sunflowers' by Van Gogh. It talks about the symbolism, the painting techniques, and the background story of his personal life.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    169 views1 page

    Van Gogh - The Sunflowers

    Uploaded by

    Rennik-Jan Neggers
    a short analysis of the painting 'the sunflowers' by Van Gogh. It talks about the symbolism, the painting techniques, and the background story of his personal life.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 1

    This painting is painted by Vincent van Gogh.

    Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch painter that was born in


    1853, but who spent much of his life in France. Van Gogh is considered to be one of the leading
    painters of post-impressionism. Post-impressionism was an art movement that flowed from
    impressionism around the 1880s. Contrary to impressionism which tries to capture spontaneity and
    natural light and colour in its paintings, post-impressionism rather used their paintings to express
    emotions through symbolism and colours, regardless of the form or composition of the content. This
    may sound too abstract, but as soon as we go into the painting itself it becomes more clear.
    Van Gogh painted a series of paintings featuring sunflowers, and this particular painting shows a vase
    with 14 sunflowers, and was painted in 1888. This painting by Van Gogh is a good example of a post-
    impressionist painting in which emotions are expressed through symbolism and colour. Let me
    demonstrate this by asking a question. If you would just look at this painting, would your impressions
    then say that van Gogh painted this in; (a) a period of depression; (b) a period of normality; or (c) a
    period of intense happiness? Hopefully you were thinking of the third option a period of happiness.
    If you look at the painting, the first and inevitable thing you notice are the many bright yellows that
    Van Gogh used. By using the bright colour yellow, and by experimenting with yellow on yellow on
    yellow on yellow, the abundance of this colour immediately gives a feeling of lightness and
    cheerfulness.
    If you would next think about the contents of the painting, it also appeals to the same positive
    feelings through symbolism. The sunflowers are obviously the symbols in this painting, and in Dutch
    literary tradition, sunflowers symbolise devotion and loyalty. They do, however, also symbolise the
    circle of life.
    Thanks to the many letters that Van Gogh sent to family and friends, we know that he had strong
    mood-swings, which was later ascribed to his bipolarity, but we also know that in the period that
    when he painted the sunflowers, he actually experienced a period of happiness, as they colours and
    symbolism of the painting already suggested. Van Gogh was very excited in this period because he
    was expecting his friend and painter Paul Gauguin to stay and work at his house. In this excitement,
    Van Gogh wanted to redesign his studio, and decorate it completely with sunflowers, since he
    strongly identified with these flowers. In one of his letters he wrote: the whole thing will be a
    symphony in blue and yellow. I work on it all these mornings, from sunrise. Because the flowers wilt
    quickly and its a matter of doing the whole thing in one go.
    If we take a closer look at the details in the painting, you could think that Van Gogh forgot to refine
    some parts, in which we can clearly see a thick splash or stroke of paint. But the contrary is true. Van
    Gogh was a keen user of thick plashes and strokes of paint, called the impasto technique. This
    technique give a more three-dimensional effect in the painting. In this painting Van Gogh also used
    other techniques, such as pointillism (small dots).
    By combining all aspects mentioned above, Van Gogh managed to create one of his most popular
    paintings, and also one of the most famous paintings in the world.

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