Like Monet, Degas, and Bernard, Van Gogh was deeply interested in and influenced by Japanese art, especially for the ways it broke with accepted artistic tradition. Van Gogh collected hundreds of Japanese woodblock prints, and treasured them for their vivid colors, dynamic compositions, cropped elements, attention to everyday objects and the details of nature, and, above all, their joyful atmosphere. I placed Dancing Sunflowers in the most everyday of Japanese objects, a sake bottle, and painted them with that same sense of movement and joy.
Like Monet, Degas, and Bernard, Van Gogh was deeply interested in and influenced by Japanese art, especially for the ways it broke with accepted artistic tradition. Van Gogh collected hundreds of Japanese woodblock prints, and treasured them for their vivid colors, dynamic compositions, cropped elements, attention to everyday objects and the details of nature, and, above all, their joyful atmosphere. I placed Dancing Sunflowers in the most everyday of Japanese objects, a sake bottle, and painted them with that same sense of movement and joy.