Roger Segui
Professor: Patrick Murphy
ENGL 1301-81062
09/23/2013

Meeting Sunflower When I stood where broad prairies stretched out as far as the eyes can see, I exclaimed,” What amazing the earth!” The green prairie stretches to the horizon with a few green tall trees. Looking carefully, there are a lot of colorful flowers on the grass. No wonder many artists love choosing the nature scenery to be their creative subject, especially colorful flowers. Not only have the artists but also in general people loved flowers. Thus, different type of flower symbolizes different meaning. For example, the rose symbolizes love, or the sunflower symbolizes courage and happiness. I saw a painting “Vase with Fifteen Sunflower” which is oil on canvas painting by Vincent Willem van Gogh. Sunflower was shown an amazing knowledge of painting by Van Gogh and the fleeting moment life.

First, this oil painting was painted in August 1888 by Vincent Willem van Gogh, who was a great artist in the 21th century .Van Gogh was born in March 30th, 1853 and died July 29th 1890 and was a Dutch painter and draftsman. His work is full of naturalism, and is inspired by impressionism, pointillism, fauvism, and expressionism. Fascinated, he continues to expand his artistic culture: analyzing the work of painters of the time, he visited museums, he exchanges the art galleries ideas with his painter friends, he studied Japanese prints, English engravings, etc... His paintings reflect his research and the extent of his artistic skills. While Van Gogh was experiencing a serious mental disorder and ended his own life, he left over 2000 paintings, painted in a decade, as a living legacy. They represent his images of life in the fields of wheat and stars swirling, tender and attentive portraits of peasants and flowers much he loved living in a simple vase, his works bear his stylistic imprint all. Considered a great form of communication of the spirit, his work has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams to comfort and console humanity through art. It is through his paintings, not being too romanticized, life at bay, it must be judged as poet, prophet and master artist he was. However, his life is strewn with crises reveal his mental instability. One of them causes his suicide at the age of 37 years. Next, the “Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers”, created in 1888, this series consists of still life’s including three similar paintings with fifteen sunflowers in a vase and two similar paintings with twelve sunflowers in a vase. It was in August 1888 when he lived in Arles (France) that Van Gogh made the first Vase with Twelve Sunflowers, which is now on display at the Neue Pinakothek in Munich, Germany, and