Sunflowers in A Vase

When someone mentions sunflowers, I guess most of us think of Vincent Van Gogh's beautiful paintings of them. Van Gogh was able to capture all the beauty of these flowers and his paintings are of them are full of movement, so that, although they are in vases, you can almost feel them stretching out towards the sunlight.

The Sunflowers in my post were given to my wife as part of a leaving present as she is changing jobs. I was so caught up by the beauty of them that I thought I would take a few photographs of them.

There is nothing dainty or subtle about sunflowers. They are big and bold almost shining like the sun. They have thick stems that are designed to hold their weight. I would say there is something almost masculine about them. And yet, despite there bigness and boldness, there is something strikingly beautiful about them. Their orange centres, which would have eventually become seeds had they not been cut, intensify their yellow petals. They remind me the pictures of the sun that small children draw; a bright circle with dashes coming out to represent the sun's rays.

I know that in some countries they are grown as a crop plant to harvest their oil rich seeds, and can be seen in fields dancing in the sun, blown by the summer breeze. As far as I know they aren't grown like that here in the UK, or at least if they are there aren't many places where they are grown. i have never seen a field full of them. Maybe our climate doesn't suit the commercial growing of sunflowers? Which is a shame as I would love to see fields full of sunflowers stretching their heads to catch the sun. Although if they were grown here in that way, i guess they would become commonplace and unnoticed, with a 'so what' attitude attached to them, like so many other things we pass each day and miss their beauty.

The sunflowers in my photos don't begin to match the sunflowers in a Van Gogh painting. For a start I haven't composed them as well as he would have done. Besides a photo only catches what is there, it can't catch the emotion that the subject creates in the one photographing it, or the photographers personality, quite like a painting does. But I think these sunflowers are beautiful and I enjoy looking at them and admiring their strong beauty. I hope you do too.