Post-Impressionism · 1888
Vincent van Gogh 1853–1890
National Gallery · London
Van Gogh painted these blazing yellow blooms to welcome Gauguin to Arles — a hymn to the southern sun in thick, urgent paint.
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Chapter 1 of 7
What you are looking at is a painting made almost entirely from one colour. Van Gogh arrived in Arles in 1888 dreaming of an artists' colony; he decorated his Yellow House with these canvases to welcome Paul Gauguin. Fifteen sunflowers, one earthenware vase — and an obsession with yellow that would define his most celebrated year.
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