Sunflowers — Van Gogh

Van Gogh's Sunflowers series ranks among art's most emotionally charged still lifes, selling in 1987 for $39.9 million—over three times the then-record for a painting. The seven canvases, painted in Arles in 1888, capture friendship's warmth through thick, radiant layers of yellow ochre and chrome. Each sunflower's 14 petals were rendered with Van Gogh's signature impasto, a technique using 2mm-thick paint strokes that created a sculptural, luminous surface unknown to his contemporaries.