Focus on this artwork and explain the Gauguin's influence.
In his catalogue raisonné, Hulsker considers the claim that the radical changes now evident in Vincent's work were a result of Gauguin's influence and the Synthetic Symbolism style of painting, a fusion of Neo-Impressionism, Japonisme, and Pont Aven Symbolism, that he developed with Émile Bernard. In a collection of reminisces Avant et Après published 15 years later, Gauguin himself made the claim:At the time I arrived in Arles, Vincent was full of Neo-Impressionism and was in serious trouble, which made him very sad; not that this school, like all other schools, was bad, but it simply did not suit his impatient and independent nature. With all his yellow on violet, all his painting with complementary colours, which he did in an unsystematic way, he got no further than incomplete, soft, monotonous harmonies; the clarion call was missing. I undertook the task of showing him the way, which I found easy, for I found rich and fertile soil. Like all original natures that show the stamp of personality, Vincent knew no fear and no obstinacy. From that day onward Vincent showed surprising progress; he appeared to discover what lay within him, hence that whole series of sunflowers after sunflowers in full sunshine.
Hulsker remarks that in reality Vincent was already in his prime as an artist when Gauguin arrived. For a while he was influenced by Gauguin's theory of painting from the imagination and Memory of the Garden at Etten is certainly a conscious effort to paint in this style, but he soon returned to Realism. As for the Sunflower paintings, those had been completed fully two months before Gauguin's arrival.
Émile Bernard Japonisme Synthetic Symbolism Arles Neo-Impressionism Realism Pont Aven Symbolism