Fun Fact: Vincent van Gogh is probably most well-known for his paintings of sunflowers. Indeed, they were a “lure” of sorts, for his good friend Paul Gauguin. When Van Gogh rented his famous “Yellow House” in Arles, France, in 1888, he desperately wanted to create a communal artist colony. To that end, he invited the painter Paul Gauguin to live with him. To make the home welcoming and impress his friend, Vincent hurriedly painted the sunflower canvases specifically to decorate Gauguin’s bedroom. Gauguin was so captivated by them that he famously declared they were “completely Vincent.”
“Sunflowers”
Oil on canvas.
Currently on display at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
Courtesy of the Vincent van Gogh Foundation.
Come with me
into the field of sunflowers
Their faces are burnished disks,*
Come with me
to visit the sunflowers,
they are shy
but want to be friends;*
they have wonderful stories
of when they were young —*
Don’t be afraid
to ask them questions!*
Their bright faces,
which follow the sun,
will listen,*
those rows of seeds —
each one a new life! —*
each of them, though it stands
in a crowd of many
like a separate universe,*
Many thanks to Terri for another Flower Hour prompt. Please stop by her blog to see her great Sunflower images:
The Flower Hour #47: Can You Ever Get Enough Sunflowers?
’Til next time, y’all…
*Mary Oliver, from her poem “THE SUNFLOWERS” — page 202 “From Dreamwork 1986” in her anthology “Devotions”. Full text below.
THE SUNFLOWERS
Come with me
into the field of sunflowers
Their faces are burnished disks,
their dry spines
creak like ship masts,
their green leaves,
so heavy and many,
fill all day with the sticky
sugars of the sun.
Come with me
to visit the sunflowers,
they are shy
but want to be friends;
they have wonderful stories
of when they were young —
the important weather,
the wandering crows.
Don’t be afraid
to ask them questions!
Their bright faces,
which follow the sun,
will listen, and all
those rows of seeds —
each one a new life! —
hope for a deeper acquaintance;
each of them, though it stands
in a crowd of many
like a separate universe,
is lonely, the long work
of turning their lives
into a celebration
is not easy. Come
and let us talk with those modest faces,
the simple garments of leaves,
the coarse roots in the earth
so uprightly burning.
Leave a Reply