About Today Is Art Day Puzzle - Van Gogh - Sunflowers
About Sunflowers Known for his bold, brilliant paintings and manic behaviour, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh is one of the most recognizable artists in Western Art. His two series of Sunflowers are among his most famous.
The first series, executed in Paris in 1887, depicts flowers lying on the ground, while the second set, made a year later in Arles, shows a bouquet of sunflowers in a vase. What is interesting about this particular painting is that the sunflowers are wilting.
Van Gogh hung the first two paintings in his guestroom in Arles as a way to welcome – and impress – his friend, painter Paul Gauguin, when he came to stay.
Van Gogh was a master painter who strongly influenced the abstract and Neo-expressionist who came after him. Originating from the Netherlands, he discovered Impressionist art while living in Paris and started to use the color and light. His work is well known for its beauty, emotion, and color, as well as its interesting viewpoints of mundane objects.
Despite being extremely poor and generally unknown throughout his lifetime, Van Gogh is now one of the greatest Dutch painters. He lived a life with emotional tension and madness, and he created his finest piece, Starry Night, inside an institution.
Although the specter of mental illness haunted him throughout his adult life and created a habit of inflicting self-harm (such as the infamous severed ear), his work remained a testament to his genius. Van Gogh died at the age of only 37, due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His brother Theo would go on to distribute his work and cultivate his popularity.
