The Sunflowers in Perspective

The geometry of colors in van Gogh’s Sunflowers

“…It is known that Van Gogh painted his series of paintings on sunflowers using real sunflowers are models. He painted the London version in late August 1888, when sunflowers usually start to fade [26]. Second, van Gogh used the yellow chrome pigment to color the sunflowers and it is known that this pigment darkened as it ages [9,10,27].…”

The Geometry of Colors in Van Gogh’s Sunflowers

“…In the case of the Sunflowers in a vase with a yellow background, namely an original, F454, and two replicates, F457 and F458 that van Gogh painted using the original as a model, this sentiment came true, as the background and flower rendition in those paintings have faded and turned brown, making them less vibrant that van Gogh had most likely aimed at. His intents with those paintings were to "push chromatic intensity ... with the aim of achieving a radical light-on-light effect" [26]. We have attempted to restore van Gogh's intent using a computational approach based on data science.…”

“…While the differences in the yellow hues of the painted Sunflowers compared to the yellow hues in real sunflowers are explicit for all three paintings, highlighting aging of those paintings, we have also observed significant differences between the repetition F457 and the two other paintings, F454, the original, and F458, the second repetition. This is most likely the intent of van Gogh, as proposed by Bakker and Ripoelle [26]. Indeed, van Gogh painted F457 not based on real sunflowers but based on another work of art, F454 (van Gogh painted F457 in January when there were no sunflowers available).…”

“…It is known that Van Gogh painted his series of paintings on sunflowers using real sunflowers are models. He painted F454 in late august 1888, when sunflowers usually start to fade [26]. Second, van Gogh used the yellow chrome pigment to color the sunflowers and it is known that this pigment darkened as it ages [9,10,27].…”

“…We illustrate this concept by modifying the background of the flowers in F454, as illustrated in Figure 10. van Gogh painted many variations of the sunflowers, with background varying from pale to deep blue and yellow as he explored chromatic effects in the juxtaposition of those backgrounds with the yellow flowers of the sunflowers [26]. We decided to modify at least part of this background to see how it visually impact our perception of the paintings, using F454 as a support.…”