The Artist's Road Painting the World's Beautiful Places

Sunflower Season

Perspectives from The Artist's Roaad

Still Life with Sunflower     1907     Piet Mondrian

   It is Sunflower season here and we are lucky enough to live very close to one of the most picturesque (and well-visited) fields around, making plein air painting amongst the flowers a yearly event for us and for our students.

   The Sunflower subject in paintings has a rich history, famously from the works done by the European Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. But the Sunflower itself (Helianthus) is a plant native to North America with evidence suggesting that it was cultivated by American Indians in the Southwest as early as 3,000 BC. Just about every part of it had a use. It was ground into flour. The seeds provided oil and a purple dye used for textiles. Even the dried stalk had a use as a  building material.

   Helianthus reached Europe through Spanish explorers probably in the 1500s, becoming cultivated primarily for its oil by the late 1700s with Russia leading the way in propagation and breeding programs. It remains the national flower of Ukraine. But it wasn’t just the commercial worth of the Sunflower that stirred interest. The flowers themselves began to be portrayed in artworks.

Self-Portrait with a Sunflower     ca. 1633     Anthony van Deck

   Perhaps the Sunflower reached its painting heyday during the 1800s, becoming a well-known component of the still life and garden paintings of Monet, Van Gogh, Klimt, Mondrian and Gauguin.

   We looked at several of these paintings attempting to pair with them the seeds closest to the images of the Helianthus in the paintings by working with our good friends who are the North American distributors for the Italian seed company, Franchi Sementi. We’ll never know for sure exactly which varieties were painted, but we enjoyed putting together seeds with paintings and plan to plant them in our garden next spring. They will make wonderful subjects for our painting students. In fact, we think everyone should have the opportunity to plant their own and make wonderful works of art from them.

   To that end, we offer a limited selection of five archival giclee prints - The Masters’ Sunflowers. Klimt's "Garden with Sunflowers", Mondrian's "Still Life with Sunflower", Van Gogh's "Still Life Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers", Monet's "The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil" and Monet's "Bouquet of Sunflowers"—each paired with one of the seed packets for the Helianthus we think closest to that which was painted. You can plant the seeds and create your own masterpiece to hang next to the print!

Bouquet of Sunflowers   1880   Claude Monet
with Franchi Girasole Ornamentale Multicolor Seed Pack