The Painter of Sunflowers

The Painter of Sunflowers at the Van Gogh Museum is Gauguin's portrait of Van Gogh himself, painted in December 1888 during the final weeks before the crisis that ended their cohabitation. Gauguin depicts his friend at work on his sunflower paintings — a telling choice of subject that acknowledges Van Gogh's identification with that motif while distancing it through observation rather than shared feeling. Van Gogh's reaction was ambiguous — he recognized himself but felt Gauguin had made him look mad, a perception that stung even as the two men were approaching their breaking point.

Gauguin paints Van Gogh with his characteristic flat areas of bold color and firm outlines, the figure of the working painter treated with the same Synthetist approach he was applying to landscapes and still lifes. The sunflowers Van Gogh works from are rendered with strong yellows and oranges that dominate the composition's color palette.