Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh Were Famous Impressionist Painters

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I have chosen to compare and contrast Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings of sunflowers. Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh were famous impressionist painters. Impressionist painters broke away from the traditional styles of painting. Like all impressionist painters, Van Gogh and Monet preferred to paint outdoors concentrating on landscapes and the many subjects in life around them. Monet and Van Gogh chose the subject of sunflowers for two of their most famous still life paintings and even though both depict the same type of flower, their painting styles are completely different. Van Gogh was considered to be more post-impressionist than Monet. Van Gogh was also considered to be an expressionist. Van Gogh moved to France and rented a house and began panting seaside landscapes, portraits and the Sunflower series. His paintings reveal his emotions and sensations and are expressionist in nature. His paintings project him opening his heart and soul and releasing his deepest feelings through images which are intended to embrace the observer. Van Gogh painted several series of sunflowers. The example that I will be using is the painting of the vase with several sunflowers. Van Gogh’s painting of sunflowers gives the viewer a closer look at the individual flowers because of the way he arranges them. Some of the faces of the sunflowers are looking straight ahead while some are turned away which gives the appearance of dying flowers. Van Gogh is trying to express the sadness of the flowers by making them look away. Van Gogh uses the centers of the flowers to make you think that they are like eyes looking into the soul. Van Gogh uses vibrant colors to express the emotions that are associated with sunflowers in life. He uses bright yellow colors to show the sunflowers in full bloom and browns to show the wilting and death of the flowers. Van

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