It was five months before he painted sunflowers: Van Gogh was infected by the bright colors of Japanese Ukiyo-e paintings and longed to see the strong sunshine in the south, so he came to arles in the south of France, where he wanted to create a "Southern Studio".
Van Gogh was bent on building an ideal "artist's home" (a friend's home), but despite his heartfelt and enthusiastic ideas, the artists' response was quite cold. No one wants to come, only Gauguin was invited. Van Gogh was deeply moved, and with the most sincere feelings, he decided to decorate his "yellow house" with more than a dozen sunflower paintings and give them to Gauguin. In order to give his favorite sunflower to his dearest friend, he worked hard day and night to create it. However, when summer passed and Gauguin arrived, Van Gogh only painted four Sunflowers, which failed to achieve the original expected goal.
However, Van Gogh's joy did not last long. After living with Gauguin for two months, they broke up in discord. Gauguin returned to Paris after Van Gogh's ear-cutting incident. Van Gogh suffered from periodic mental illness from then on, and he also had repeated attacks in the future.
When winter came, Van Gogh was still alone. He lived by describing his sunflower. After the completion of the three replicas, he planned to give them to Gauguin, because when their lives were most harmonious, Gauguin once said in a praising tone, "Yes, this is the flower!" " "
Lonely and depressed, Van Gogh continued to paint sunflowers, which he intended to dedicate to his dearest friend. For better or worse, he insisted on painting, but he never gave too much attention. After that, when Van Gogh was sober, he was obsessed with the creation of Sunflower until his life was laid to rest forever.
■ Sunflowers deeply reflect Van Gogh's life wishes.
Sunflowers painted only with gorgeous yellow TINT are the embodiment of Van Gogh or his masterpieces. But why was Van Gogh so fascinated by this flower?
It turned out that when Van Gogh concentrated on creating the Sunflower series, it was the time when his art was mature, and he liked to use yellow very much at this time. For van Gogh, who longed for bright colors, yellow represents the color of the sun and has special significance; At the same time, sunshine symbolizes love, and he uses sunshine to express his wishes, from which we can easily see his intention of insisting on using yellow.
Van Gogh used all kinds of flowers to express himself in Sunflower, and sometimes even compared himself to a sunflower. It can be said that what he described is not exquisite ornamental flowers, but that he regards this flower deeply rooted in the land and with strong vitality as "farmers' flowers"; Instead of painting it as a flower, he painted it as a portrait. Sunflower, like the farmer he described before, has different shapes, which makes him feel energetic and kind-hearted.
The seven sunflowers in Amsterdam can be said to profoundly express Van Gogh's wishes. In his letter to his younger brother Theo, Van Gogh talked about the series of sunflower works many times, indicating that there are two kinds of compositions of twelve and fourteen sunflowers (if buds are included, it should be fourteen and fifteen). He used to be fascinated by the numbers 12 and 14. For example, when Gauguin came to arles, he even tried to put together twelve chairs at a time.
Because Van Gogh was determined to become a priest, it is not difficult to imagine that he wanted to express the intention of the twelve apostles of Christ with numbers like "twelve". Therefore, Van Gogh designated the members of the "Southern Studio" (that is, the "House of Friends") as twelve people, turned them into sunflowers, and together with Gauguin and his younger brother Theo, fourteen people were painted in a vase to live together ... His ideal "House of Friends" is probably the image of "God and the Twelve Apostles"! In addition, the signature on his yellow vase and Al's "yellow room" in the "Southern Studio" can prove that Van Gogh painted Sunflower according to this creed.
For Van Gogh, sunflower is the best theme to express his thoughts. Summer is short, and the flowering period of sunflowers is not long. Van Gogh also ended his short life like a sunflower, so it should be appropriate to call him a "sunflower painter".
■ Sunflowers full of love and longing
Among Van Gogh's 1 1 sunflowers, 10 was scattered all over the country after his death, and only one is on display at Van Gogh Art Museum. This painting was taken from Van Gogh by his dearest brother Theo and kept by his wife johanna after his death. Later, the Van Gogh Art Museum was finally established in 1973 because johanna and his son were running around. The famous painting Sunflower was put into the art museum together with other Van Gogh paintings.
Only a few people recognized Van Gogh's talent before his death, and Theo was one of them, and always gave him as much help as possible. Van Gogh always lived alone. When he wandered about for love, the only thing that accompanied him was a strong sense of loneliness. Sunflower, the symbol of Van Gogh's incarnation, was treasured by Theo's family after his death and has been preserved ever since. ...
■ Sunflowers —— Special Significance in the History of Painting
After Van Gogh's death, his talent was finally recognized by the painting world, and Sunflower became a world-famous masterpiece. This is because although there are many paintings with flowers as the theme, there are few painters with sunflowers as the theme, which are full of game and have special significance. In addition, it is rare for painters to develop their paintings to this extent with tenacious perseverance and hard work. Due to the appearance of Impressionism, the picture focuses on the flicker of light and the expression of color, which goes beyond the previous framework of realism and puts forward a new direction of faithfully describing what you see and feel. Van Gogh, on the other hand, was completely different from them. He not only showed what he actually saw, but also reflected the artist's spiritual world. For Van Gogh, the so-called painting is a means to express surging passion. The immature part of his paintings shows the painter's burning inner world and also shows a new artistic direction.