Van Gogh And Gauguin

Vincent Van Gogh is one of the most infamous and influential artists of all time. When I saw that Van Gogh’s painting “Olive Trees With Yellow Sky and Sun” was on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, I knew I had to choose it for this paper. Before doing the research for this assignment, I didn’t know much about Vincent Van Gogh, but the fact that pretty much everyone knows his name and recognizes him as a huge part of art history, it made me naturally really curious about him.

At first glance, the similarities between Vincent van Gogh and Georgia O’Keeffe appear minimal at best. A young van Gogh died penniless and largely unknown in a remote backwater in the south of France, while O’Keeffe lived out a long and illustrious life as one of the most famous artists of the early twentieth century. Where O’Keeffe was the object of admiration and fascination, van Gogh was the object of pity and derision. Where O’Keeffe was heralded in her lifetime for capturing the spirit of the desert landscapes of her beloved New Mexico, van Gogh was a was a man without a country, driven by destitution and illness to wander Europe in search of peace and some measure of stability. Despite their differences, however, O’Keeffe and van Gogh share vital similarities. Both van Gogh and O’Keeffe used art to advocate for the inclusion of the disenfranchised and the forgotten (namely, the poor and the ill in van Gogh’s oeuvre and women in O’Keeffe’s); both revolutionized how the natural world is seen; both are characterized by aesthetic styles which are highly sensory and sensual, representing psychological and physical states in such groundbreaking ways that they change the modern world’s understanding of what it means to be human.

Soon hereafter, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, the wife of van Gogh’s broth Theo van Gogh, compiled and published the letters between van Gogh and Theo. This publication helped spread the absorbing mystique of van Gogh’s life. Accord to Saltzman’s book, the popular image of van Gogh was solidified in 1930s when the American novelist Irving Stone published a novel about van Gogh’s life in 1934 entitled “Lust for Life”. This book and later the movie of the same name added to further the artist's fame as an artistic martyr who driven by despair and ignored. In that time, some critics like Roger Fry and Clement Greenberg attended to discount van Gogh’s work as being driven by emotional rather than aesthetic concerns. I was surprised to learn that it was not until the 1980s a wave of revisionist scholarship reconstructed the facts of van Gogh's professionalism. Critics began to appreciate that van Gogh's bouts with depression were intermittent, that he was born into a family of artists and was well educated, and that he worked with a purposeful, intelligent genius. The process of recognizing van Gogh’s fame reveals the growing role of critics in the art

The life span of 37 years saw Vincent Willem van Gogh (Vincent) in creating beautiful works he dearly loved. Painting was an avenue, which allowed him to express his inner thoughts or vent his struggles. My decision to research on Vincent’s painting, Starry Night (1889) came with the inspiration from Don Mclean’s Song, Starry Starry Night where his lyrics spoke about Vincent’s life that further intrigued me in writing this paper.

A great artist once wrote, “If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced”. This artist was Vincent van Gogh, soon to be an appraised artist known all around the world for his works, such as Starry Night. He is one of the very first artists of the post-impressionist style than is now adored in every continent. However, there is much more to the man than one painting. Creating a full timeline that stretches beyond Gogh’s life, this paper will discuss the life of Vincent van Gogh and the impression he made on the world.

While the painters after the Impressionism period were collectively called the “Post-Impressionists,” the label is quite reductive. Each artist had their own unique style, from Seurat’s pointillism to Signac’s mosaic-like divisionism, Cezanne, Émile Bernard, and others. These artists were all connected in that they were reacting to the aesthetics of Impressionism. Two of the more influential painters from this movement were Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, who aimed to connect with viewers on a deeper level by access Nature’s mystery and meaning beyond its superficial, observable level. However, each artist’s approach to achieving this goal was different. In close examination of Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait (Dedicated to Paul Gauguin) and Paul Gauguin’s Self-Portrait with Portrait of Émile Bernard (Les misérables), one may clearly see the two artists’ contrasting styles on display.

Each artist is an individual with a unique style, and although these styles can be similar in practice – the individuality of the artist often proves the discriminating factor for a successful artwork. Self-portraits are beneficial when looking at the individuality of the artist as there are two aspects to look at – the artist’s style, and the artist’s view of him/herself. The latter can provide a brief insight into the mental situation of the artist as well as any apparent influencing factors of the artwork. This view can often also include fragmental insights into the society and culture of the time. Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh are 2 artists of whom are well represented by this statement.

Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet are two highly influential contributors to the art world. Both are renowned artists whose creations are on display in several art museums throughout the world. They are two artistic geniuses who are more alike than they appear to be. While there are many similarities between the lives and art of these two prodigies there are numerous differences as well in their technique/style, subject matter, and personal lives.

Perhaps he had come to Arles for the sun and for him, it was an immense joy to live in such bright bedroom, bursting with colors. What is also fascinating about this piece of art is how the painter highlights the simplicity of his bedroom through the medium of color: « the pale lilac walls, the floor of an old brown, the chairs and bed chrome yellow, the blood red cover, the orange little table and the blue basin”, as the painter describes it. Van Gogh asserted that he wanted to express a complete rest by handling all these different shades2. The color black, which could be evocating a certain form of anguish, is almost nonexistent in this painting. Only the frame of the mirror and windows is black. We wonder if this could mean that Van Gogh was afraid of his future and afraid to face up to reality.

“Primitivism” was a cultural attitude that arose in Europe during the late 19th and 20th century in opposition to the increasingly decadent and materialistic European culture. Rather than an artistic movement, “primitivism” is a European conception of foreign civilizations and lands as “simple”, less developed, and naive. This is an important distinction to make, because “primitivism” was defined in the eyes of the Europeans who saw foreign civilizations as unsophisticated, indicating that the concept of “primitivism” is heavily biased in the view of the Europeans. Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse were two artists that were highly influenced by the concept of “primitivism,” and some similarity can be depicted in their works such as the use of female nudes, vivid colors, and artistic techniques. However, their definition and methods of achieving “primitivism” differ heavily, due to the fact that the vagueness of “primitivism” allows it to be a self-defined concept. These similarities and differences can be seen through the two works of art The Spirit of the Dead Watching by Paul Gauguin, and The Blue Nude by Henri Matisse, and the way they depict women in each of the pieces.

In this essay, I will be comparing and contrasting artists Pablo Picasso and Van Gogh, considering their intentions with their artwork. Van Gogh and Picasso two of the most famous artists out there and still are to this day. Uncountable books have been published and dedicated to them and their lives and careers of being true artist. Their art has changed the way people view things and the world around them.

As well as Matisse’s Bonheur de Vivre, Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was inspired by and deviated from Cezanne’s great achievement. Cezanne’s landscape is a broad open field with the abstract females surround a pond as they bath with abstract surroundings, very much different from Picasso’s

Observers of Van Gogh’s life believed that his eccentricities, compounded to create many distressing experiences that directly impacted the development of Expressionism. This was visible from his early childhood. Painting was no longer seen through pictures, it became a crucible that could hold all of the artist’s passions, conflicts, and unrealized dreams. (Encyclopedia.com)

Les Glaneuses (The Gleaners) is a compendium of Pissarro’s treatment of pastoral life, relating directly to the seminal painting of the same name (1887-1889). While the painted work is Neo-Impressionist in its treatment of tone, its texture is made up of a discrete series of dots, dashes and commas, anticipating that Pissarro would soon abandon the common aesthetic doctrine outlined by Seurat and Signac (see fig. 1).

Van Gogh was a Post Impressionist artist who painted expressively to portray emotions subjectively, like Gauguin, rather then