Oct 1 Wed
What if there is a hidden meaning in the Sunflowers of Van Gogh?
Known worldwide for their vibrant yellows and emotional depth, Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers have become symbols of joy and creativity. But is there more here than meets the eye? Could Van Gogh’s masterpiece also be read as a profoundly Christian painting — one that, like the flowers themselves, calls us to turn toward the light of God?
Far from a delicate still life, the paint is thick, sculpted, almost carved into blossoms that seem to grow from the canvas itself. What might it reveal about our faith?
Born in 1853 in the Netherlands, Vincent Van Gogh was the son of a Protestant pastor. Morning prayers, hymns, Scripture, and Sunday worship shaped him from the start. For a time, he pursued ministry, serving as a missionary among coal miners in Belgium. Though he later abandoned formal ministry, this pastoral calling transformed into something new: a conviction that he could speak of God not with words, but with color.
Encountering the Impressionists in 1886, Van Gogh replicated their revolutionary use of light and color. Darkness gave way to blazing yellows, swirling blues, and restless skies. His brush no longer merely described the world — it prayed. It wept. It proclaimed. This journey is traced through paintings like ‘Café Terrace at Night,’ where the luminous awning, like Christ’s cloak of the Last Supper over the everyday world, and the disciples shining in the sky, and ‘The Sower at Sunset,’ where the glowing orb of the sun, like a monstrance, takes on an almost Eucharistic radiance.
In 1888, Van Gogh turned to sunflowers. Devoting himself almost entirely to yellow, he created blossoms that pulse with life, each petal shimmering with energy. And if you think of an artist's paintbrush being the extension of the artist's soul, we can see that the paintbrush is trembling with urgency. And yet at the end of the day, well, it's just a painting of flowers in a vase. But what if he was telling us about our faith?
Van Gogh elevated ordinary subjects into radiant symbols of creation itself. Yet he struggled with mental illness, loneliness, and despair, dying at just 37. At his funeral, friends placed sunflowers beside his coffin — the flowers he once called “mine.”
Perhaps these flowers are more than flowers. Possibly the painting is a kind of prayer. A prayer, yes, without words, where each flower almost represents us. Some flowers look battered, some are drooping, some even have their backs turned towards us, some are fully flourishing, but each all uniquely shaped by God. And all of them are trying to find the light.
These luminous sunflowers remind us that holiness is not about perfection. Holiness is about orientation, like these flowers, trying to turn constantly towards the light of God. Even in this vase of fading blooms, we realize that God is present in the ordinary as much as in the extraordinary events of our lives.