Genetic mutation depicted in van Gogh's sunflower paintings unearthed by ...
20.05.12
(Public Library of Science), a team of University of Georgia scientists announce they have found the genetic mutation that’s responsible for the distinctive, “double flowers” that appear in the iconic painter’s Sunflower series.
“I’ve worked on sunflowers for the past 10 to15 years and have thus really come to appreciate this series of paintings,” says University of Georgia professor of plant biology John Burke.
Van Gogh began painting sunflowers while living in Paris in 1887, mostly as clippings. A year later in Arles, France, he began painting the flowers in vases — a project to decorate the bedroom of his friend French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin.
“We have identified the gene (HaCYC2c) that is responsible for mutant phenotype that van Gogh captured in several of his sunflower paintings,” he says.
Burke has identified the gene mutation responsible for van Gogh’s double headed flowers. “There are naturally occurring mutations,” says Burke “As far as we know sometimes things go wrong. We wanted to figure out genetically — why.”
Source: Toronto Star