04-10-2012, 01:19 PM
FAMOUS WORKS
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Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) produced around 900 paintings in his lifetime, yet only sold one. In the years since 1890, however, Van Gogh’s fame has skyrocketed – securing him a position as one of the most reproduced artists of all time. The team at Art Revived has assembled a list of Van Gogh’s most famous works.
Van Gogh painted The Starry Night in June 1889, having mentioned the morning star in a letter to his brother Theo written around the 2nd of June 1889: "This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big." The morning star (actually the planet Venus, not a star) is generally taken to be the large white one painted just left of the center of the painting.
Earlier letters of Van Gogh's also mention the stars and night sky, and his desire to paint them:
"When shall I ever get round to doing the starry sky, that picture which is always in my mind?" (Letter to Emile Bernard, c.18 June 1888)
"As for the starry sky, I keep hoping very much to paint it, and perhaps I will one of these days" (Letter to Theo van Gogh, c.26 September 1888).
"At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to me that night is still more richly colored than the day; having hues of the most intense violets, blues, and greens. If only you pay attention to it you will see that certain stars are lemon-yellow, others pink or a green, blue and forget-me-not brilliance. ... it is obvious that putting little white dots on the blue-black is not enough to paint a starry sky." (Letter to Wilhelmina van Gogh, 16 September 1888)
Van Gogh envisioned his sunflower works as a series and worked diligently on them in anticipation of the arrival in Arles of his friend, Paul Gauguin. In a letter to Emile Bernard written around 21 August 1888 Vincent wrote: "I’m thinking of decorating my studio with half a dozen paintings of Sunflowers. A decoration in which harsh or broken yellows will burst against various blue backgrounds, from the palest Veronese to royal blue, framed with thin laths painted in orange lead. Sorts of effects of stained-glass windows of a Gothic church." (Letter 665).
Vincent eventually planned a dozen sunflower works to be hung in the Yellow House which he and Gauguin would use for a studio. "I’d like to do a decoration for the studio. Nothing but large Sunflowers. Next door to your shop, in the restaurant, as you know, there’s such a beautiful decoration of flowers there; I still remember the big sunflower in the window. Well, if I carry out this plan there’ll be a dozen or so panels. The whole thing will therefore be a symphony in blue and yellow. I work on it all these mornings, from sunrise. Because the flowers wilt quickly and it’s a matter of doing the whole thing in one go." (666). Unfortunately, Vincent's race against the changing seasons was unsuccessful and he was only able to complete four sunflower works in August, 1888.