Life-sized
This is an unusual flower still life. Here, Van Gogh does not paint fresh flowers in a vase or pot, no arranged bouquet of different flowers, no entourage and no background; just a few cut sunflowers gone to seed. The flowers are painted life-sized and fill the entire canvas.

Colour studies
In Paris, Van Gogh frequently paints flower still lifes to practice his use of colour. In 1886, he writes to a friend: ‘I have made a series of colour studies in painting simply flowers (…) seeking oppositions of blue with orange, red and green, yellow and violet, seeking the broken and neutral tones to harmonise brutal extremes. Trying to render intense colour and not a grey harmony’.

Highpoint
In this painting, he finds what he sought: warm and cold colours in contrasting tones. The combination of these with the swirling brushstrokes in all directions, but also the strange, undefinable space in which the sunflowers are placed, make this painting one of the highpoints of his Parisian period.

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　　这幅画是最能代表梵高内心的状态和追求的。画中展现的强烈生命力正是梵高的写照，画面中是四朵被剪了枝的向日葵。整个画面有三种色调，都是经典的梵高色——金黄色，蓝色，黑灰色。但是整个画面是黄色占据了画面中心部分。画面中，上面是黑灰色夹杂着墨绿色。中部是四朵金花的向日葵。其中三朵是正面朝上，一朵朝下。右下角是一片蓝色的，如天空，又如海洋。整个画面首先给人一种视觉的张力，如火的黄色，和如火焰般跳动的向日葵的花瓣，让人处于不安中，但是上端的黑色和绿色以及右下角的蓝色稳住了整个画面的跳跃感。整个画面的结构和色彩达到了高超的平衡技巧。