1885 -1890 · night, flowers, peasants and portrait

Starry Night, Sunflowers, Potato Eaters and Doctor Gachet summarize four distinct reasons for Van Gogh's popularity: sky, color, humanity and face.

Van Gogh's popularity does not rest on a single period. The Potato Eaters, painted in Nuenen in 1885, use an earthy palette and rough hands to defend an image of peasant work that the artist wanted to be sincere. In Arles, the Sunflowers transform a bouquet into an almost entirely yellow accord, intended to decorate the Yellow House and welcome Gauguin. In Saint-Rémy, La Nuit étoilée reconstructs the landscape seen from the asylum into a sky of spirals, cypresses and moon which exceeds the faithful survey. In Saint-Rémy, La Nuit étoilée reconstructs the landscape seen from the asylum into a sky of spirals, cypresses and moon which exceeds the faithful survey. In Saint-Rémy, La Nuit étoilée reconstructs the landscape seen from the asylum into a sky of spirals, cypresses and moon which exceeds the faithful survey. In Auvers, the Portrait of Doctor Gachet combines melancholic posture, digital branch and personal relationship. These famous works therefore do not form a formula repeated, but four responses to successive places and problems. The selection "Vincent van Gogh - 100 most popular paintings" notably compares Starry Night and Sunflowers. His reading favors the story.

A popular work by Van Gogh remains strong when we find behind the icon the precise decision that built it.