A couple weeks ago at Starved Rock, I was giving location tips to an out-of-state photographer who was visiting the area for the first time. He asked if there were any sunflower fields nearby. I said I didn’t know of any. When I got home, I searched and discovered that the state planted a field nearby at Matthiessen State Park. Time for another trip!
Sunflowers were domesticated about 3,000 to 5,000 years ago in the Arizona, New Mexico, Mexico area, and the crop spread through the continent, and was quickly brought to Europe by explorers.
The flower became a favorite subject of Vincent Van Gogh. When Paul Gauguin came to stay with Vincent in Arles in southern France, Vincent decorated his room with paintings of sunflowers. Vincent wrote to his brother Theo that “Gauguin likes them extraordinarily.” And that another painter had the peony, and another the hollyhock, but “I have the sunflower.”
One of Vincent’s paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago is Madame Roulin, the cradle rocker. Vincent included a sketch in a letter to Theo that this peaceful, domestic portrait of a new mother should be displayed with paintings of sunflowers on each side.
Arles is near the Mediterranean port city of Marseille where the famous Provencal fish stew was created.
“I am hard at it, painting with the enthusiasm of a Marseillais eating bouillabaisse, which won’t surprise you when you know that what I’m at is the painting of some sunflowers. If I carry out this idea, there will be a dozen panels. So the whole thing will be a symphony in blue and yellow. I am working at it every morning from sunrise on, for the flowers fade so quickly.” Vincent to Theo, 1888.
I had a college friend from Arles, and was fortunate to visit him. It was during the summer Olympic games in Moscow that the U.S. was boycotting, and we watched some of the games between many walks around Arles— soaking in many of the scenes that Vincent painted. The hot, sunny, bright light of Arles is contained in a field of sunflowers. Further in his letter to Theo, Vincent wrote:
“In the hope of living in a studio of our own with Gauguin, I’d like to do a decoration for the studio. Nothing but large sunflowers.”
