Perhaps we haven’t been alive enough in Britain to the sunflowers in Van Gogh’s work. From today to 27 April there is a rare opportunity to see two of the original group side by side: one from the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, and the other in the National Gallery, London, where the show is being held. But who, apart from Van Gogh scholars, knew that there were so many other sunflowers, popping up in landscapes, repeating themselves in replicas, and infecting the work of his peers? So many of them that Vincent was able to write to his brother, Theo, “… j’ai avant d’autres pris le tournesol”, translated as “the sunflower is mine”.Van Gogh arrived in Paris in 1886 when he was 32, having had an up-and-down career as art dealer, teacher, bo