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Primary sourcePainting1888

The Sower

Vincent van Gogh · 1888

A painting by Vincent van Gogh showing a sower in a field under a huge yellow sun, echoing Millet's famous image.

This is one of Van Gogh's own paintings, showing his recurring symbolic treatment of the sower theme.

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Painting of a sower walking across a plowed field toward a large yellow sun setting over a golden wheat field. Short, thick brushstrokes in yellow, orange, and blue fill the sky and ground. A small house is at the far left and a crow is in the field.
Vincent van Gogh, The Sower, 1888. Villa Flora.

About this source

What it is

This painting was made by Vincent van Gogh in 1888 and is held at Villa Flora. It shows a sower walking across a plowed field toward a huge yellow sun setting over golden wheat.

Why it matters

Van Gogh returned many times to the theme of the sower, originally made famous by the painter Jean-François Millet. In his hands the subject gained a glowing, almost religious intensity through the giant sun. It reveals how Van Gogh combined admiration for earlier artists with his own symbolic use of colour and light, and his ongoing interest in rural labour and spiritual meaning.

Look closer

  • What effect does the enormous yellow sun have on the mood of the painting?
  • Why might Van Gogh keep returning to this same subject of a sower?
  • What do the thick, visible brushstrokes tell you about how the painting was made?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Vincent van Gogh on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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