Sunflowers:

It all starts with a bunch of flowers and the curiosity of how to capture the natural sunlight on a sunflower. {Have to still experience a field full of over- towering, smiley, sun- turning sunflowers. Must go to the Free State Province for that, make mental note.}

In this slow thought process {still warped from the heat} the post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh http://www.vangoghgallery.com/ springs to mind. The Sunflowers surely are his; as quoted from one of his many resourceful letters of his art to his brother. He also explains how he was drawn to the colour yellow and the life stages of the sunflower from full bloom to the final wilt. Paul Gaugin’s {another impressionist painter and friend} room was to be filled with sunflowers and the painting had to happen vigorously as the flowers were wilting. {I realized this too with the camera}

Going through my own resources of books and prints {this man did paint a lot} I was dismayed of not finding any of his sunflowers. Then I asked my computer, the mighty brain, that heavy head on my shoulders, look under Amsterdam, 1990, centenary of his death, brochure of Vincent van Gogh Museum,the opening, Aunt Ingrid taking us , it was very special, face to face with these paintings…oh ,Anja, you are quite a squirrel, voila there it is in it's original state, in Dutch and sunflowers, in luck, lets shoot…

Wilting, real sunflower 3D meet van Gogh’s expressive 2D…

This thought process awakened my observations to his paintings again and why we are drawn to it and that the sunflower even in its final stages evokes interesting sculpture like features, stark shapes and colour.

Can you imagine if he only went more south, to Cape Town with the Dutch ships how he would have painted our proteas, the Namaqualand in spring and all the other fauna and flora etc. etc. Just another thought….