Sunflowers

Sunflowers

Vincent van Gogh

Colors in this work

Details

Date
1887
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
17 x 24 in. (43.2 x 61 cm)
Department
European Paintings
Holding institution
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
License
CC0-1.0
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1949

Art Genome Taxonomy

9 tags

Subject Matter

  • Still Life Both · 100%

    The museum metadata identifies the work as a still life, and the image visibly depicts cut sunflowers arranged as the central subject.

  • Flora Both · 100%

    Sunflowers are listed as the cataloged subject, and multiple sunflower heads, petals, leaves, and stems are directly visible.

Styles and Movements

  • Post-Impressionism Interpretive · 83%

    The emphatic brushwork, heightened color contrasts, and animated surface support a cautious visual reading of the work as Post-Impressionist, although the supplied museum metadata does not specify a style.

Visual Qualities

  • Bright and Vivid Colors Visual · 88%

    Saturated blue and golden-yellow passages dominate the composition, with vivid ocher, orange, green, and reddish-brown accents.

  • Dense Composition Visual · 96%

    The overlapping flowers, leaves, stems, and brushstrokes create a crowded mass occupying nearly the entire horizontal canvas.

Medium and Techniques

  • Oil Painting Metadata · 100%

    The museum records the medium as oil on canvas.

  • Impasto Visual · 98%

    The high-resolution image shows visibly raised, heavily worked paint across the flower heads, petals, leaves, and blue ground, producing a strongly tactile surface.

  • Vigorous, clearly visible strokes curve, slash, radiate, and overlap throughout the bouquet and background rather than forming smoothly blended passages.

Time Periods

  • 19th Century Art Metadata · 100%

    The work is dated 1887, placing it within the nineteenth century.

Source & rights

Vincent van Gogh. Sunflowers. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

High-resolution sources