Artist : Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890).
Quote : “The sunflower is mine.”
Materials : Oil on Canvas.
Colour theme - Orange, yellow, green. Blue but at a minimum.
warm stale tone comes to mind.
Different stages of (a sunflowers) life.
Focus object reaches from top to bottom of canvas.
What elements from this image is used in photography today?
Although I love this image and Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ is my favourite genre of his work, i feel if i saw this as a still life photo shot today that it would be very plain and kind of boring. If it were it may have been shot as a product shot? for the vase or flowers themselves. From a photographers point of view the painting follows a lot of photography techniques, or rather set the standard for them being such an old piece of work before the camera came around.
Rule of odds - 15 different sunflower stages all in a mess of directions.
Filling the Frame/Framing - By filling the entire canvas with the inverted colours of the vase, van Gogh brings focus to the darker colour of the flowers. also making the green stems stand out against the pale yellow wall.
Leading Lines - Altho they are VERRY minimal, the use of the blue lines for not only the table but the shape of the vase adds depth and dimension to what would have been a very flat image otherwise.
Attention using Light - Again, very minimal but none the less present. There is some highlight present in the flowers to help in showing the direction they are facing. But the most prominent highlight is in the most forward point on the vase, adding again t the depth and shape of items in the painting.
Visual Balance/Pattern and repetition - Although they are all different tones, the one consistent is colour. varying from dull yellow to dark burnt orange. I feel there is also a good balance of colour due to the colour switch of the vase to the table and wall; dark on light then vice versa.
Simplify - i Think simply speaks for it’s self in this one... Even in adding the blue lines to show direction van Gogh wrote his signature in the same colour so that it didn’t distract from the focus of the image or look out of place. He only added the essential and bare minimum in detail.
