A Masterpiece in Your Front Room
New Statesman, UK
By Jeremy Bugler

… Another pleasure of making the series is that it may help to rescue iconic artworks from the awful condescension of fame. With 50 minutes in which to examine one artwork, a programme can reveal anew just how complex and clever and rich it is. Even the most cliched paintings emerge fresh. How many who see Van Gogh's Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London know the religious richness of his work? He portrayed 12 sunflowers to symbolise Christ's disciples and added two or three more to balance the painting. More…

'Vincent' Plays with History, Painter's Life
San Diego Union Tribune
By Robert L. Pincus

In 1873, when van Gogh was living in England, he was earnestly trying to succeed as an art dealer. By 1880, after a series of emotional and spiritual crises, he had decided to become an artist. The rest of his short life really is history – more accurately, it was history-making.

His years in England would be lost to us if not for the dazzlingly great drawings and paintings he made in the decade leading up to his death by suicide in 1890. No one would care about a young Dutchman with emotional problems trying to succeed at the art trade if he hadn't become the artist he did. (Van Gogh turned out to be a complete failure at selling art.) More…

In a letter to his brother Theo, back in 1889, Van Gogh spoke of sunflowers as the still life subject he would make his own. His devotion paid off as sunflowers became as identified with Van Gogh's name as water lilies with Monet.

Browse other Van Gogh paintings.