About this work
*Van Gogh Painting Sunflowers* — also known as *The Painter of Sunflowers* — is a portrait of Vincent van Gogh by Paul Gauguin.
The scene is depicted from above, with all its essential components cut off by the edge of the canvas: the painter himself, his palette and easel, and the table with the vase of sunflowers.
Almost none of what would be the traditional subject takes place in the middle of the picture — Vincent, the canvas he paints, and the flowers are all pushed to the edges, with part of his head, his back, and most of his left arm cropped out of the picture plane entirely.
His eyes look toward the canvas, drawing the viewer along his arm to his hand holding the brush — that working hand, closest to the centre of the composition, is the true subject of the painting.
Gauguin's use of flat areas of colour and the distinct separation of colour planes create a coherent, decorative quality to the piece, with Van Gogh's blue smock throwing the blazing chrome yellows of the sunflowers into sharp relief. The eye that Gauguin painted in the largest sunflower appears to be an explicit reference to the version depicting fourteen sunflowers against a yellow background, now in the National Gallery in London.
The work is a piece from Gauguin's "Arles Period," created in Arles, France, in December 1888.
The portrait was painted while Gauguin lived with Van Gogh in Arles — Van Gogh had asked Gauguin to stay with him and form an art colony he called "The Studio of the South," and after much urging and extensive correspondence, Gauguin agreed to move there in October 1888.
Gauguin preferred to work from imagination, unlike Van Gogh, who painted and drew directly from nature — they often debated this difference, and this painting alludes to those discussions.
Though Gauguin would have watched Van Gogh paint many times, it is likely that the portrait scene was done mostly from memory — a key indicator being that the work was completed in winter but depicts a scene from summer.
Gauguin admitted the likeness was imperfect, but felt he had captured his friend's intimate character — Van Gogh's own first reaction was that Gauguin had depicted him as a madman: "It is certainly I, but I gone mad."
The completed painting was shipped to Theo Van Gogh on December 20, 1888, shortly after an incident between the artists; days later, on December 23,
