Sunflowers

Although Édouard Manet (1832–1883), one of the pioneers of Impressionism, is considered the originator of sunflower painting in modern art, the world’s most famous sunflowers were painted by Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890). Antanas Samuolis (1899–1942) particularly admired van Gogh, one of the idols of his generation, whose art strongly influenced not only his work but also that of his tragic contemporary Marcė Katiliūtė (1912–1937). The picture Sunflowers is Samuolis’ symbolic and sentimental tribute to the Dutch genius of Modernism. In fact, when van Gogh painted the flowers he was influenced not so much by nature in Provence, but more by French Impressionism. Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) painted sunflowers when he was living in Tahiti, as a reference to van Gogh, his friend who had taken his own life and the successor to Impressionism, and to France, his homeland. Gauguin even had some sunflower seeds sent to him from France, and began to grow the impressive flowers in his Polynesian garden. He painted his Sunflowers in memory and out of sorrow for his friend, who had committed suicide in 1890. On the same theme, the picture Sunflowers by the open-minded Lithuanian artist Vladas Eidukevičius (1891–1941) in the collection of the Lithuanian Art Museum should be mentioned. That picture is one more tribute to van Gogh by Lithuanian artists. Text author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė.