The sunflower paintings most people picture, the tall vases glowing yellow on yellow, came a year after this one. In 1887, living in Paris with his brother Theo, Van Gogh painted a group of still lifes of cut sunflowers lying on their sides, trying out a new, brighter palette after meeting the Impressionists. This version is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The famous vases came in Arles in the summer of 1888. Van Gogh painted them to decorate the bedroom of his friend Paul Gauguin, who was coming to share the Yellow House. He wrote to Theo that he hoped to fill the walls with sunflowers. Gauguin arrived in October, and the stay ended in the breakdown of December 1888, when Van Gogh cut part of his own ear. The sunflowers outlasted the friendship.
Yellow was his favorite color. He used a pigment called chrome yellow, bright and cheap, but chemically unstable. Scientific studies have shown that chrome yellow can darken over time, turning from lemon to brownish, which means some of his paintings are slowly changing color in front of us. Conservators have to be careful with the light these pictures receive for that reason.
The flowers are not idealized. Some are in full bloom and some are wilting, their heads drooping and their seeds dropping out. Van Gogh liked that. To him, a sunflower was a symbol of loyalty and of life that is already turning toward its end.
When the Japanese insurance company Yasuda bought one of the Arles versions at auction in 1987, it paid 39.9 million dollars, then a world record for a painting. Van Gogh sold almost nothing in his lifetime.
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