Van Gogh’s inspiration for painting his series of sunflowers came from the gardens of Montmartre in Paris.
The colours – shades of yellow and brown – and the technique express a beautiful world of hope and sunlight. Sadly, such a world was slipping slowly but surely from his grasp as he succumbed to mental illness. In the summer of 1888 he commenced work on a series of paintings of sunflowers to decorate his house in Arles, in readiness for the arrival of his friend Paul Gauguin. Among his sunflower paintings are three similar paintings with fifteen sunflowers in a vase and two similar paintings with twelve in a vase. In a letter to his brother Theo, he wrote: “The sunflower is mine, in a way.”
Van Gogh’s ability to reduce his composition to basic elements and colours, primarily his favourite, yellow, resulted in great simplicity without loss of realism.