Vincent Van Gogh: Chrome yellow

Vincent van Gogh’s paintings of sunflowers are considered by some to be his most iconic and well-loved works. ​Following his move to Arles in the south of France in early 1888, Van Gogh created seven paintings of sunflowers in the period between 1888 and 1889.

Painted in August 1888, both the National Gallery's painting of a large bunch of sunflowers against a yellow background (pictured here) and its companion painting on a turquoise background, now in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich, are perhaps the most important in the series.

Through his letters to his brother, Theo, and to fellow artists, we have an unusually good record of Van Gogh’s choice of painting materials.

Van Gogh used commercial oil paints for his paintings. These were generally purchased by his brother, on his behalf, from various art supply stores in Paris - such as Tasset et L’Hôte and Père Tanguy.

In another letter to his brother dated 4 September 1888, just after Van Gogh completed the London version of ‘Sunflowers’, the artist attached a paint order in which he requested three types of chrome yellow… 

A pale, lemon yellow colour. This is a sulphate-rich form of lead chromate (present as monoclinic lead chromate sulphate).

A medium yellow colour. This is a mid-yellow monoclinic lead chromate (found in nature as the mineral crocoite).

A deeper orange colour. This predominantly contains basic lead chromate (found in nature as the mineral phoenicochroite) and possibly a little lead chromate​.

Chrome yellow derives its name from the element chromium, which in turn comes from the Greek word khrōma, meaning colour. ​The element gets its name because compounds of chromium are often highly coloured.

Chrome yellow was first introduced as an artist pigment in around 1816, shortly after the element chromium was first isolated by the French chemist Nicolas Louis Vauquelin in 1797.​

In addition to the chrome yellow pigments, there is also another chromium-containing pigment used in Van Gogh's ‘Sunflowers’ - the green hydrated chromium oxide pigment, viridian. Viridian has been used to create the dark green strokes pictured here.

Van Gogh was attracted to the vibrancy of the chrome yellow pigments and the other pigments available to artists in the late 19th century, but he was aware that many of these pigments were unstable.

Van Gogh himself noted in a letter to his brother in April 1888 that 'all the colours that Impressionism has made fashionable are unstable’. While some pigments fade, the chrome yellows are now known to darken when exposed to light.