Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Dear Theo by Vincent Van Gogh Vincent Van Gogh

Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Dear Theo by Vincent van Gogh Vincent van Gogh. Almond Blossom was painted immediately before one of his attacks; "My work was going well," he informed his brother, "the last canvas of branches in blossom - you will see that it is perhaps the best, the most patiently worked thing I had done, painted with calm and with greater firmness of touch. And the next day, down like a brute." Poised between lucidity and desperation, this lacework of light and color is kept aloft by the confidence Van Gogh had acquired in the previous two or three years and the sheer technical finesse now at his command. During the course of his career, Vincent would copy a few Japanese paintings and were deeply influenced by his admiration for Japanese art. In 1888 Vincent wrote to Theo: About this staying on in the South, even if it is more expensive, consider: we like Japanese painting, we have felt its influence, all the impressionists have that in common; then why not go to Japan, that is to say to the equivalent of Japan, the South? At the back of his mind may well have been a blossom study from a Japanese print, such as the work by Kunisada acquired at some point by the two brothers for their collection. In the "firmness of touch" of Almond Blossom , we see the culmination of years of intensive, questioning draftsmanship; and in the openness and buoyancy of the design, we sense the optimism that the artist - despite his insurmountable condition - could magnificently, magically translate into paint. In painting the Almond Blossom , Van Gogh was not out to revive his own optimism, but to make an offering to his ever-caring brother. In spring 1889, Theo had married Jo Bonger, and in February 1890 she gave birth to their son, whom they named Vincent after the boy's godfather. The Blossoming Almond Tree was van Gogh's present to the infant that would perpetuate his name. Never before had he viewed the bright buds in such close-up; never before had he lavished such colour on the glorious blossoms. The hope expressed in the painting is bound up with human life and thoughts of the future. It is not exactly Utopian in character; rather, the keynote of the painting is longing. And it is not really a reminiscence of Aries at all - in a sense, the painting is a celebration of family life, which Vincent the godfather now felt part of again. In the picture he tried to call forth for his godson what was denied to him: a carefree, happy future. "My dear brother, later one occasionally finds it necessary to remember", he wrote rather inscrutably in a letter when Theo married. Now, painting this picture, van Gogh's own remembering looked back to his origin, and the family again became the epitome of security on earth, with the birth of a boy who bore his name. 10 Secrets of "Almond Blossom" 1) The 1890 painting "Almond Blossom" was Van Gogh's gift to his newly born nephew and namesake. 2) Van Gogh arrived in Arles in the spring of 1888 on the heels of a late snowfall. Housebound, he spent his first week painting such still life treatments as "Blossoming Almond in a Glass" and "Blossoming Almond Branch in a Glass with a Book." 3) He produced just about a painting of a flowering tree each day during the first month of his visit, including some of almond blossoms. 4) The "Almond Blossom" series of paintings contains strong elements of the Japanese Ukiyo-e prints that Van Gogh had been collecting. These elements include:Cropping of the image, Bold outlines of the branches, Absence of perspective/horizon, and Large, bright blocks of color. 5) Van Gogh's "Almond Blossom" was part of a recent "Van Gogh and Japan" joint exhibition of his own works and Japanese paintings. 6) After Vincent's and Theo's death, "Almond Blossoms" went to Theo's widow, Joanna Van Gogh Bonger, and then to V.J. Van Gogh. The Van Gogh Foundation acquired the canvas in 1960, and it now resides at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. 7) In his May 3, 1890 letter to Vincent, Theo praises the "Almond Blossoms," which his brother had sent in a group of works to Paris, as "very, very beautiful." 8) Ironically the artist completed his final painting of the blossoming tree, an image of rebirth and new life, a few short months before his death by suicide. 9) Theo and Joanna hung the final version of "Almond Blossoms" above their infant son's bed. Joanna wrote to the elder Vincent that it "seems to enthrall him." 10) Due to a fresh onset of illness during his work on "Almond Blossoms" in February 1890, the artist was unable to go out and paint the other flowering trees that spring, telling his brother Theo in a letter, "Really, I have no luck." Vincent van Gogh. Wheatfield with Crows is one of Van Gogh's re-created memories of the north, and is believed to be the last work of Van Gogh. In early July of 1890, Van Gogh traveled to Paris, alone, to stay with Theo and his wife Jo. Theo was in poor health and was having financial problems, which was an enormous worry to Van Gogh who was keenly aware of the burden he was on his brother and his family. In addition, the baby was ill and Jo too was suffering from exhaustion. Van Gogh returned quickly to Auvers but rapidly became severely depressed. Writing of this picture shortly before his suicide, Van Gogh conveyed something of its tragic mood: "Returning there, I set to work. The brush almost fell from my hands. I had no difficulty in expressing sadness and extreme solitude". The singular format of the canvas is matched by the vista itself, a field opening out from the foreground by way of three diverging paths. It creates a disquieting situation for the spectator, who is held in doubt before the great horizon and cannot, moreover, reach it on any of the roads before him; these end blindly in the field or run out of the picture. The familiar perspective network of the open field is now inverted; the lines converge toward the foreground from the horizon, as if space had suddenly lost its focus and all things turned aggressively upon the beholder. The blue sky and the yellow fields pull away from each other with disturbing violence; across their boundary, a flock of black crows advances toward the unsteady foreground. And here in this pathetic disarray, we discover a powerful counteraction of the artist. In contrast to the turbulence of the brushwork, the whole space is of a primordial breadth and simplicity. The colors in their frequency have been matched inversely to the largeness and stability of their areas. The artist seems to count: one is the unique blue of the sky - unity, breadth, the ultimate resolution; two is the complimentary yellow of the divided, unstable masses of growing wheat; three is the red of the diverging roads that lead nowhere; four is the complementary green of the untrodden grass of these roads. As a man in distress counts and enumerates to hold on things securely or to fight a compulsion, Van Gogh in his extremity of anguish creates an arithmetical order to resist disintegration. He makes an intense effort to control, to organize. Elemental contrasts become the essential appearances; and in this simple order, the separated parts are united by echoes of color, without changing the larger forces of the whole. Two green clouds are reflections, however dimmed, of the green of the roads. And in the blue of the sky is a vague pulsation of dark and light that resumes the great unrest of the ground below. Wheat Field with Crows remains as Vincent van Gogh's most contentious painting. The many interpretations of the work are probably more varied than any other in Van Gogh's oeuvre. Some see it as Van Gogh's "suicide note" put to canvas, while others delve beyond a superficial overview of the subject matter and favor a more positive approach. And some more extreme critics cast their vision even further - beyond the canvas and the brushstrokes - in order to translate the images into an entirely new language of the subliminal. In an important letter that broke several months of silence, Van Gogh compared himself to a bird in a cage, and commented: But then the time comes when migratory birds fly away. A fit of melancholy - he's got everything he needs, say the children who look after him - but the sky is brooding and stormy, and deep within he is rebelling against his misfortune. 'I am in a cage, I am in a cage, and I've got everything I need, fools! I've got everything I could possibly want! Ah, dear God, freedom - to be a bird like the other birds! A human idler of this variety is just like a bird that idles in the same way." 10 Secrets of "Wheatfield with Crows" 1) The artist shot himself in the very wheat fields he had painted over and over again, wounding himself in the stomach, which led to his death on July 29, 1890. Theo, Van Gogh's brother who had stored the bulk of Vincent's works in Paris, died six months later. The two brothers were later buried side-by-side in a cemetery overlooking those wheat fields in Auvers-sur-Oise. Graves of Van Gogh and Theo at Auvers-sur-Oise. 2) Perhaps due to the influence of his short-lived ministry studies, Van Gogh's depiction of wheat in his paintings reflects spiritual and secular symbolism. In 1889, the year prior to when he completed "Wheatfield with Crows," the artist wrote that wheat is not only people's primary form of sustenance but is also symbolic the ripening and reaping of human life. Wheat is symbolic of celestial love in the Christian tradition, and to Van Gogh, it also represented the fruits of honest, manual labor. 3) During June and July 1890, the final months Van Gogh was alive, he painted on double-square canvases, which are a combination of two 50 x 100 cm canvases, and "Wheatfield with Crows" is no exception. 4) The luminescence of such later Van Gogh paintings as "Wheatfield with Crows" and Starry Night has a turbulent visual effect that some believe reflects the artist's state of mind during the final months of his life. The luminescent quality of the wheat suggests strong motion while the crows flying randomly above echo and add to the turbulence of the scene. 5) In a July 10, 1890, letter to his brother Theo and sister-in-law, Vincent wrote that his wheat field paintings beneath turbulent skies are meant to express the sadness and extreme loneliness that conveyed what he felt but couldn't put into words. 6) Mathematicians have commented on the proximity between the turbulence in Van Gogh's later works and the mathematical principle of hydrodynamic turbulence and the velocity of its flow. This may suggest that the artist took an instinctively scientific approach to his visual expression. 7) In "Wheatfield with Crows", Van Gogh expressed his darkest premonitions. Critics tend fairly unanimously to detect a sense of menace in the dark birds flying from the horizon towards the foreground. They see the three paths as symbolic of Van Gogh's feeling that he had nowhere to go, no way of escape. The whole mood of darkness, they claim, is reinforced by the stormy sky, which supplies so powerful a contrast to the yellow wheat. 8) Perhaps the most powerful creature within the image is the crows themselves. The crows in the painting represent resurrection, according to art critics, but historically, crows can also be harbingers of bad luck and/or death. Jules Michelet, one of van Gogh's favorite authors, wrote of crows: "They interest themselves in everything, and observe everything. The ancients, who lived far more completely than ourselves in and with nature, found it no small profit to follow, in a hundred obscure things where human experience as yet affords no light, the directions of so prudent and sage a bird." 9) Wheatfield with Crows was painted in July 1890, in the last weeks of Van Gogh's life. Many have claimed it as Van Gogh's last painting, while some scholars believe that Tree Roots was his final painting. 10) Along with 19 other Van Gogh paintings, Wheatfield with Crows was stolen and quickly recovered in 1991. In the process of the heist, the thieves severely damaged the painting. Vincent van Gogh. Vincent van Gogh – urodzony 30 marca 1853 r. w Groot Zundert w Holandii malarz holenderski. Syn pastora. Vincent po skończeniu szkoły zatrudnił się w filii paryskiej galerii w Hadze. Doznał zawodu miłosnego, kiedy jego wybranka odrzuciła jego propozycję małżeństwa i doznał załamania nerwowego. Nie mógł znieść samotnego życia w Hadze i wkrótce powrócił do swojego rodzinnego domu. Van Gogh dostał pracę pomocnika nauczyciela w anglikańskiej szkole w Anglii. Rzucił ją dla studiów teologicznych. Został protestanckim kaznodzieją, wkrótce jednak wykluczono go z Kościoła. Vincent udał się w 1880 r. do Brukseli z postanowieniem zostania artystą. Zaczęły powstawać jego pierwsze sławne prace, jak np. „Siewca”. Płodny okres w twórczości van Gogha został przerwany przez kolejną nieodwzajemnione uczucie – do kuzynki. Niedługo potem związał się z ciężarną prostytutką, która pozowała do jego obrazów. Zaraził się od niej chorobą weneryczną. Po rozstaniu z nią van Gogh przeniósł się do północnej Holandii, gdzie żył w pustelniczych warunkach i tworzył swoje dzieła. W 1885 r. malarz wyjechał do Antwerpii, gdzie zamierzał rozpocząć studia, jednak jego nowatorska technika nie zyskała uznania nauczycieli. Vincent van Gogh po trzech latach przeniósł się do Arles w Prowansji, gdzie powstały jego najważniejsze dzieła: „Nocna kawiarnia”, „Taras kawiarni w nocy”, „Słoneczniki”. W tym czasie pogłębiało się jego załamania nerwowe. Vincent van Gogh zmarł 29 lipca 1890 r. Auvers-sur-Oise – strzelił sobie w pierś z rewolweru. Dlaczego van Gogh odciął sobie ucho? W podręcznikach historii sztuki wiele pisze się na temat ucha van Gogha. Ponoć artysta odciął je sobie własnoręcznie tuż przed Bożym Narodzeniem w roku 1888. Powszechnie uważa się, że artysta odciął sobie ucho w przypływie szału. Czy jednak rzeczywiście tak było? Współczesne badania historyków wskazują na trochę inny przebieg tego wydarzenia. Mogło to być związane z dosyć burzliwym relacjami van Gogha z innym wielkim artystą, jakim był Gauguin. Malarze przyjaźnili się ze sobą, jednak na pewno nie była to łatwa znajomość. Współczesne ustawienia historyków sugerują, że po kłótni przyjaciół, to właśnie ten drugi wielki malarz mógł odciąć mu ucho. Mężczyźni postanowili utrzymać to w tajemnicy, jednak ich relacje od tego czasu praktycznie przestały istnieć. Najsłynniejsze obrazy van Gogha. „Jedzący kartofle” van Gogha. Dzieło „Jedzący Kartofle” van Gogha to tak naprawdę dwa obrazy, które mają ten sam tytuł. Pierwszy powstał jako wstępna wersja, drugi natomiast to obraz obecnie znajdujący się w muzeum van Gogha w Amsterdamie. Datowane są na rok 1885, powstały w Nuenen. Obraz ten uważany jest za pierwsze arcydzieło artysty, powstałe w początkowym okresie jego pracy twórczej. Dominują na nim bardzo ciemne, ziemiste barwy, kolorystyka jest raczej smutna. Obraz został namalowany techniką farb olejnych na płótnie. Historia powstania związana jest z wysiłkami czynionymi przez artystę w kierunku tego, aby ukazać pełnię swoich możliwości artystycznych. Powstanie tego obrazu poprzedzały zatem liczne próby ujęcia między innymi kilku postaci na jednej kompozycji. Van Goghowi pozowali wtedy między innymi znajomi, a on przygotowywał szkice, które były niejako treningiem przed stworzeniem już głównego tytułowego dzieła. To właśnie ten obraz uważany jest za jeden z przełomowych, naprawdę dużych dzieł artysty. Zarówno wersja ostateczna, jak też wersja pierwsza, w przeszłości padły łupem złodziei. „Słoneczniki” van Gogha. Słoneczniki Van Gogha to jeden z najbardziej znanych obrazów w historii sztuki. Warto jednak wiedzieć, że tak naprawdę to cała seria dzieł, wśród których szczególnie jeden jest mocno rozpoznawany. W skład serii wchodzi 11 obrazów, które powstały podczas pobytu artysty w Paryżu oraz Arles. Jak sama nazwa wskazuje, ta seria obrazów przedstawia bukiety słoneczników, które znajdują się w różnej fazie wzrostu. Obrazy zostały namalowane techniką farb olejnych na płótnie. Ich kolorystyka jest ciepła, dominują odcienie żółci i złota, a także ciemnej pomarańczy. Najbardziej rozpoznawany z serii, czyli obraz ” Dwanaście słoneczników w wazie”, jest datowany na rok 1888. To właśnie to dzieło, które van Gogh namalował w trakcie swojego pobytu w Arles, przyczyniło się do tak niesamowitej sławy malarza praktycznie na całym świecie. Van Gogh tworzył te dzieła z myślą o udekorowaniu pracowni malarskiej, którą miał dzielić wraz z innym sławnym artystą, czyli Gauguinem. Obecnie obrazy z tej serii znajdują się między innymi w muzeum w Monachium oraz Amsterdamie. „Autoportret” van Gogha. Autoportret van Gogha to obraz olejny, namalowany w roku 1889. Dzieło to przedstawia popiersie swego twórcy, którego niespokojna twarz wyróżnia się na tle reszty kompozycji, utrzymanej w charakterystycznej, błękitnej kolorystyce. Pomimo prostoty przekazu obraz ten budzi swoisty niepokój, którego istotę stanowi wychudła twarz i niespokojne spojrzenie autora. Uczucie to jest pogłębione poprzez charakterystyczne, wirujące tło, podkreślające dotychczasowe, trudne przeżycia van Gogha. Van Gogh namalował swój „Autoportret” na rok przed śmiercią. Jego marzeniem było stworzenie autoportretu, którego realizm przewyższałby dotychczasowe dzieła. Obraz ten był jednym z trzech (o tej samej tematyce), powstałych w końcowym etapie życia artysty. Co ciekawe, to właśnie on jest najsłynniejszym. Być może ma na to wpływ specyficzna kompozycja dzieła, w której autor został przedstawiony od lewej, to jest nie ranionej części swego ciała. Autoportret van Gogha jest czymś więcej, niż tylko obrazem. To prawdziwe dzieło, uwypuklające głębię psychiki artysty w ostatnich miesiącach jego niezwykłego życia. Vincent van Gogh. The iconic tortured artist, Vincent Van Gogh strove to convey his emotional and spiritual state in each of his artworks. Although he sold only one painting during his lifetime, Van Gogh is now one of the most popular artists of all time. His canvases with densely laden, visible brushstrokes rendered in a bright, opulent palette emphasize Van Gogh's personal expression brought to life in paint. Each painting provides a direct sense of how the artist viewed each scene, interpreted through his eyes, mind, and heart. This radically idiosyncratic, emotionally evocative style has continued to affect artists and movements throughout the 20 th century and up to the present day, guaranteeing Van Gogh's importance far into the future. Accomplishments. Van Gogh's dedication to articulating the inner spirituality of man and nature led to a fusion of style and content that resulted in dramatic, imaginative, rhythmic, and emotional canvases that convey far more than the mere appearance of the subject. Although the source of much upset during his life, Van Gogh's mental instability provided the frenzied source for the emotional renderings of his surroundings and imbued each image with a deeper psychological reflection and resonance. Van Gogh's unstable personal temperament became synonymous with the romantic image of the tortured artist. His self-destructive talent was echoed in the lives of many artists in the 20 th century. Van Gogh used an impulsive, gestural application of paint and symbolic colors to express subjective emotions. These methods and practice came to define many subsequent modern movements from Fauvism to Abstract Expressionism. Biography of Vincent van Gogh. Vincent expressed his life via his works. As he famously said, "real painters do not paint things as they are. they paint them as they themselves feel them to be." Important Art by Vincent van Gogh. The Potato Eaters (1885) This early canvas is considered Van Gogh's first masterpiece. Painted while living among the peasants and laborers in Nuenen in the Netherlands, Van Gogh strove to depict the people and their lives truthfully. Rendering the scene in a dull palette, he echoed the drab living conditions of the peasants and used ugly models to further iterate the effects manual labor had upon these workers. This effect is heightened by his use of loose brushstrokes to describe the faces and hands of the peasants as they huddle around the singular, small lantern, eating their meager meal of potatoes. Despite the evocative nature of the scene, the painting was not considered successful until after Van Gogh's death. At the time this work was painted, the Impressionists had dominated the Parisian avant-garde for over a decade with their light palettes. It is not surprising that Van Gogh's brother, Theo, found it impossible to sell paintings from this period in his brother's career. However, this work not only demonstrates Van Gogh's commitment to rendering emotionally and spiritually laden scenes in his art, but also established ideas that Van Gogh followed throughout his career. The Courtesan (after Eisen) (1887) While in Paris, Van Gogh was exposed to a myriad of artistic styles, including the Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints. These prints were only made available in the West in the mid-19 th century. Van Gogh collected works by Japanese ukiyo-e masters like Hiroshige and Hokusai and claimed these works were as important as works by European artists, like Rubens and Rembrandt. Van Gogh was inspired to create this particular painting by a reproduction of a print by Keisai Eisen that appeared on the May 1886 cover of the magazine Paris Illustré . Van Gogh enlarges Eisen's image of the courtesan, placing her in a contrasting, golden background bordered by a lush water garden based on the landscapes of other prints he owned. This particular garden is populated by frogs and cranes, both of which were allusions to prostitutes in French slang. While the stylistic features exhibited in this painting, in particular the strong, dark outlines and bright swaths of color, came to define Van Gogh's mature style, he also made the work his own. By working in paint rather than a woodblock print, Van Gogh was able to soften the work, relying on visible brushstrokes to lend dimension to the figure and her surroundings as well as creating a dynamic tension across the surface not present in the original prints. Café Terrace At Night (1888) This was one of the first scenes Van Gogh painted during his stay in Arles and the first painting where he used a nocturnal background. Using contrasting colors and tones, Van Gogh achieved a luminous surface that pulses with an interior light, almost in defiance of the darkening sky. The lines of composition all point to the center of the work drawing the eye along the pavement as if the viewer is strolling the cobblestone streets. The café still exists today and is a "mecca" for van Gogh fans visiting the south of France. Describing this painting in a letter to his sister he wrote, "Here you have a night painting without black, with nothing but beautiful blue and violet and green and in this surrounding the illuminated area colors itself sulfur pale yellow and citron green. It amuses me enormously to paint the night right on the spot. " Painted on the street at night, Van Gogh recreated the setting directly from his observations, a practice inherited from the Impressionists. However, unlike the Impressionists, he did not record the scene merely as his eye observed it, but imbued the image with a spiritual and psychological tone that echoed his individual and personal reaction. The brushstrokes vibrate with the sense of excitement and pleasure Van Gogh experienced while painting this work.