With the present painting, Nolde finds himself standing in the tradition with the famous sunflower pictures painted by van Gogh. This artist, whom Nolde greatly admired, was the first one to discover this plant as an inspiring motif to express one's moods and as a symbol of earthly forces rising towards the sun. Besides this, Nolde had always loved flowers anyway and had planted flower gardens everywhere he moved. He grew and depicted all kinds like amaryllis, roses, poppies or camellias and sunflowers which he like especially.
"His [Nolde's] finest flower pictures are removed from all environmental relationships. Like the waves seen without coastlines, they are painted without soil or vase. Nolde presents us only with petals, stamens, pistils and perhaps a few leaves. These he humanizes with his own emotion: 'The blossoming colors of the flowers and the purity of those colors - I love them. I loved the flowers and their fate: shooting up, blooming, radiating, glowing gladdening, bending, wilting, thrown away and dying'. It took considerable boldness for a painter who admired van Gogh as much as Nolde did", Peter Selz writes, "to paint sunflowers, yet he often returned to them and added a new and rich interpretation to the motif." (in: Catalogue to the exhibition Emil Nolde, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1963, p.49.)