DEAD OR ALIVE?

While in Amsterdam recently, we visited the Van Gogh Museum and took the obligatory look at one of the several Sunflower paintings made by Vincent in 1888.

It's famous, of course --- iconic no less.


And yet, as often happens when one really thinks about those paintings that have become behemoths of art history, the Sunflowers is a puzzle: brilliant shades of gold, bronze and copper, of course; but the flowers themselves - so amazing when seen in their full glory in the natural world - are here depicted as being overblown and running to seed.

If I was to choose between this celebrated picture of what is, basically, a vase of flowers that are either dead or dying and Vince's slightly less famous (but, to my mind, infinitely more beautiful) painting of Irises, with its blooms tumbling across the canvas in a vibrant and exquisite sense of Life...


...then I think I know which floral arrangement would pass reasonable muster with Interflora and which would pretty quickly find its way onto the compost heap!