My son's Absolute Favorite - Sunflowers

On a non-serious note, we have a number of the Baby Einstein videos in our home, but Baby Van Gogh is my son's favourite! This video follows the antics of Vincent Van Goat, the art-loving puppet, as he creates six masterpieces, each dedicated to a particular color. For each color, they have a different painting by Van Gogh (Starry Night for blue, Sunflowers for Orange, and so on). And his absolute favorite is Sunflowers! And Vincent Van Gogh did not paint just one, but he painted a total of twelve of these canvases featuring sunflowers! While Vincent himself never actually stated why he liked the sunflowers in particular, references to them are made in his many letters, which help give us some idea. In a letter to his sister dated 21 August 1888, he talks of his friend Gauguin coming to live with him in Arles. Then goes on to say that he ‘intends to decorate the whole studio with nothing but sunflowers.’ For whatever reason he painted Sunflowers, he certainly left us a series of beautiful paintings to enjoy.

Sunflowers, 1889
VAN GOGH, Vincent, 1853 - 1890
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

He painted the series to decorate the room where Paul Gauguin would stay when he arrived in Arles. He chose this subject because his friend had previously admired his paintings of sunflowers run to seed. In the end, Vincent executed four sunflower still lifes; however, he felt only two were good enough to hang in Gauguin’s bedroom. He was later to paint three copies of them, one of which is the version in the Van Gogh Museum.


Sunflowers, 1888
VAN GOGH, Vincent, 1853 - 1890
The National Gallery, London

This is one of four paintings of sunflowers that Van Gogh intended to decorate Gauguin's room with. Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in August 1888, 'I am hard at it, painting with the enthusiasm of a Marseillais eating bouillabaisse, which won't surprise you when you know that what I'm at is the painting of some sunflowers. I am working at it every morning from sunrise on, for the flowers fade so quickly. I am now on the fourth picture of sunflowers. This fourth one is a bunch of 14 flowers ... it gives a singular effect.'

Vase with Twelve Sunflowers, 1888
VAN GOGH, Vincent, 1853 - 1890
Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Germany

This is one of four paintings of sunflowers that Van Gogh intended to decorate Gauguin's room with. This is also one of two sunflower paintings with twelve sunflowers, all the others having fifteen.