Rachel Podger, one of the world's leading violinists who specialises in Baroque music, chooses one of Vincent van Gogh's 'Sunflowers'. In 1888, Vincent van Gogh leased a house in Arles, in the south of France, and set to work establishing his ‘Studio of the South’. He envisioned like-minded artists living and working together in creative harmony under blue Provençal skies.
The first (and only) artist he managed to attract to his scheme was Paul Gauguin and, in anticipation of his arrival, van Gogh decided to cover the walls of the Yellow House with paintings to welcome him. In a frenzied week, he painted four vases of sunflowers before the blooms faded. This picture, which now hangs in London’s National Gallery, is the fourth and final Sunflowers from this year.
Fifteen flowers are arranged in an earthenware vase. Van Gogh’s signature sits above a thin line on the vase and the blue makes the surrounding yellows zing. He reverses the colours, so the unglazed bottom section mirrors the wall behind, with the darker glazed top matching the colour of the table.
This adds dynamism to an already lively scene, where flowerheads twist this way and that, their petals about to fall or heavy with seed. ‘I am painting with the gusto of a Marseillaise eating bouillabaisse ,’ he wrote to his brother, Theo, when completing this work. Sadly for van Gogh, his excitement didn’t last long.
Gauguin arrived in October, but, before Christmas, he was heading back to Paris. The shared.