Here we have an image of a painting. I feel like this painting is one of those artworks that everyone has seen it before at some point like the Mona Lisa, or Starry Night. This painting just feels very familiar to me. I really enjoy the painting but it really makes me think. I am an art student, and someone who gets critiqued on her artwork almost everyday. I can look at this painting an imagine hanging it on the wall in the classroom during a crit. I feel like it would be ripped apart. But throw it on the wall at a museum and it’s viewed as flawless, perfection. I understand and appreciate the history behind the piece but I do feel like at times art school can be very contradicting. This picture of the sunflowers is painted with really muddy colors and yellow is usually a problematic color to begin with. We see no light source and the background is very flat. In the sunflowers there are brown circles except for one that has a bright red circle the pops out at us. The vase is outlined and again there are no shadows to suggest light. These are all things that I think would be considered problematic if it was taken out of context. This piece makes me reference a lot of things. I am really thinking right now. That in its self I think makes this piece so good. Something that can spark that much thought or something that can evoke any emotions is impressive. Now I am thinking about how the artist, Vincent van Gogh. From what I know he was a pretty tortured man. Torture… Sunflowers. The ideas don’t go together but you have to see this painting in person. The sunflowers are not happy flowers. You need to see the brush strokes and direction and quality of the paint. The sunflowers appear tortured, they are wilting. The sunflower paintings could be a good metaphor to represent Van Gogh. I also know that this painting was not his only painting of sunflowers. If I remember correctly they are all wilted. This painting is actually really heavy. I believe it has a lot of emotion behind it. If Van Gogh is really going to remake all these paintings he must have some sort of connection to them. There must be some feeling of satisfaction after making them. I am suppose to come up with 700 words about this image but I have been sitting here looking at it for sometime now and I think I have said everything there is to be said about it. I'm sure others could go on and on about the piece or go in different directions but I am done :]
