The Painter of Sunflowers

This is Van Gogh at his easel, painting sunflowers, and the man who painted it is Paul Gauguin. Gauguin had come to Arles in October 1888 to share the Yellow House, the studio colony Van Gogh dreamed of, and Van Gogh had filled the guest room with sunflower canvases to welcome him. Gauguin set him to work from imagination rather than life, which is why the flowers here are late-season and half invented. When Van Gogh saw the finished portrait he said, that is certainly me, but me gone mad. Days later, on 23 December, the two men fell out and Van Gogh cut off part of his own ear. The picture was already on its way to Theo in Paris when it happened.