Sunflower Intelligence
The large seed head resting just above the vase in the painting.

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Gratitude and friendship

In August 1888 Van Gogh began painting sunflowers to decorate the studio he hoped to share with Paul Gauguin: a welcome, prepared before the guest arrived. Eighteen months later he wrote what the canvases meant to him.

“…they express an idea symbolizing ‘gratitude.’”Vincent van Gogh to Albert Aurier, Saint-Rémy, 9 or 10 February 1890

If a tool here helped you, if you spotted something wrong, or if you’d like to work on a problem together, write to me. Van Gogh would have written a letter, so this page does too.

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Elsewhere

Sources

  1. Van Gogh to Theo, Arles, 21 or 22 August 1888, letter 666: “In the hope of living in a studio of our own with Gauguin, I’d like to do a decoration for the studio. Nothing but large Sunflowers.”
  2. Van Gogh to Albert Aurier, Saint-Rémy, 9 or 10 February 1890, letter 853.