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#6 POST-IMPRESSIONISM: PART 2
Check out this website where Vincent Van Gogh's LePont de Trinquetaille was being advertised for an auction in London, England.
The painting was purchased for a whopping $11.2 million!
OBJECTIVES
OBJECTIVES
Discuss the life of Vincent Van Gogh.
Identify the major influences on Van Gogh.
Describe the major works of Van Gogh.
Describe the work of Paul Gauguin.
VOCABULARY
VOCABULARY
POSTIMPRESSIONISM: PRECURSOR TO EXPRESSIONISM – VAN GOGH
POSTIMPRESSIONISM: PRECURSOR TO EXPRESSIONISM – VAN GOGH
Both Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin owe much to Paul Cézanne in terms of developing an individual, subjective style. Both of these artists also contributed much to the next generation of expressionist artists.
Vincent Van Gogh (1853-90)
Self-portrait of Vincent Van Gogh
"Instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I have before my eyes, I use color more arbitrarily so as to express myself forcibly."– Vincent Van Gogh
When Vincent Van Gogh, the most famous of the Dutch Post-Impressionist painters, said that he used color "more arbitrarily," he meant that his colors might not necessarily be the same colors we see in nature. Van Gogh used color to heighten the feelings aroused by the painting, not necessarily to depict reality. His colors were expressive.
Art historians have asserted that Van Gogh’s work was the epitome of expressionism.
In the final ten years of his life, Van Gogh created about 750 paintings and 1,600 drawings. Van Gogh's father was a Protestant pastor, and this exposure to Protestantism influenced his art. He had even been a preacher himself among the miners of his home country. Van Gogh’s early paintings depicted the lives of poor peasants. These dark figures reflected the misery of so much of humanity.
The Potato Eaters is a somber painting showing the difficult lives of the peasants.
He painted Daubigny’s Garden shortly before his death.
He painted Daubigny’s Garden shortly before his death.
Van Gogh’s brother, Theo, was an art dealer in Paris. In 1886 Van Gogh went to live with him. In Paris, he was impressed by the work of the Impressionists as well as the Japanese prints, which were currently in vogue. The prints gave Van Gogh confidence to use color more brilliantly.
Characteristics of those works included:
Vivid color suggesting emotion
Bold brush strokes that are sometimes right angles to each other
Dots and streaks squeezed directly onto the canvas from the paint tube
Rich hues
Two years after moving to Paris, Van Gogh left and moved to Arles in southern France. There, isolated and alone, he painted the fields, trees, and peasants of the area. Indeed, during this time of simple existence he considered himself to be somewhat of a monk, even delving into Buddhism in an effort to discipline his mind and control the mental illness that would eventually lead him to end his life. He even depicted himself as a monk in one of his self-portraits.
During this period he also started using his famous swirling brush strokes and vibrant greens, yellows and blues.
His vivid, brilliant colors had the effect of infusing his subjects with spiritual and emotional meaning. Van Gogh suffered from mental illness for much of his adult life, particularly during his time in Arles. For a short period, the painter Paul Gauguin joined Van Gogh in Arles. But they quarreled about art, and Van Gogh, whose mental illness was becoming more and more apparent, threatened Gauguin and then cut off part of his own ear. Van Gogh was later hospitalized in an asylum, where he continued to paint when he could.
Starry Night (1889) is one of Van Gogh's most famous paintings.
Starry Night (1889) is one of Van Gogh's most famous paintings.
Filled with Protestant symbolism, it was inspired by woodcuts from Dutch seventeenth-century art. He painted it and about 70 other paintings while he was in the asylum. Among those was The Raising of Lazarus , which was inspired by an etching by Rembrandt, also a Dutch artist. Van Gogh died in July 1890 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
You can see a copy of the painting and learn more about it at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) website.
POSTIMPRESSIONISM: PRECURSOR TO EXPRESSIONISM – GAUGUIN
POSTIMPRESSIONISM: PRECURSOR TO EXPRESSIONISM – GAUGUIN
Born in 1848, Paul Gauguin became an important French Postimpressionist painter later in life.
His painting Vision After The Sermon was produced in 1888 and features a Biblical theme. He became known for a primitive style that employed lush color and two-dimensional forms.
In The Seed of the Aeoi, notice the clear outlines and the flattened look of the figure. This look was a major influence on modern art. Gauguin wanted to capture the bold primitivism of folk art; his own style was characterized by flat, decorative surface patterns.
In 1886 Gauguin moved to Brittany where he was influenced by the painter Émile Bernard to abandon impressionism and move toward a style called synthetism, in which color and form play equal roles.
His art was inspired by the following:
Primitive art
Medieval stained glass
Japanese prints
In his masterpiece Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? he experimented with color and influenced the twentieth century Fauvist style. He was also an important influence on the later expressionists. Gauguin moved to Polynesia, which became the subject matter for much of his work.
Go the National Gallery of Art’s website. Read the paragraph about Gauguin and then choose one of the Gauguin pictures to describe and discuss in your journal.
His work also influenced the French painter Henri Matisse, a leader of Fauvism.
LET'S REVIEW!
LET'S REVIEW!
In this lesson, you have covered the following topics:
Vincent Van Gogh's work is known for a highly original style of brush stroke along with vivid hues
Paul Gauguin's work is known for his flat surfaces and expressive colors as well as his later subject: the people of Polynesia.
Take this quiz before moving on.
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