Four Withered Sunflowers

Van Gogh's four withered sunflowers, painted in Paris in 1887, anticipate the great Arles sunflower series in both subject and chromatic approach. Where the Arles paintings show flowers in full or partial bloom, this canvas focuses on the process of dying — the seed heads heavy with maturity, the petals drooping and drying. Van Gogh found in the dying sunflower the same dignity he found in aging peasant faces, and his observation of the specific colors of decay — yellows darkening to ochre and brown — provided him with chromatic material he would use in his mature work. The Kröller-Müller version is a significant precursor to his most famous still lifes.

The withered flowers are painted with close observation of their specific colors and forms in decay — the heavy seed heads, the curling petals, the drying stems. Van Gogh's Paris palette brings more chromatic variety than his Dutch period, with the yellows, ochres, and browns of drying vegetation rendered with sympathetic precision. Brushwork follows the forms of each flower individually.