A northern painter hungers for southern warmth.(THE HOME FORUM) From: The Christian Science Monitor | Date: July 24, 2003 | COPYRIGHT 2003 The Christian Science Publishing Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

Byline: Christopher Andreae

Surprisingly, Vincent van Gogh was not the only artist who celebrated giant sunflowers with his brush. Early in the 19th century, the German Phillipe Otto Runge included giant sunflowers in a painting of three children; the plants tower like tree saplings. The Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck, in an arresting self-portrait, also portrayed a sunflower head bigger than his own.

And the German 20th-century artist Emil Nolde, whose pain...