Saturday, 29 January 2011
Friday, 28 January 2011
Toward the end of his life, Vincent van Gogh succumbed to his mental illness, cut off his own ear after a fight with friend Paul Gauguin, and in May 1889 committed himself to a mental hospital in Saint Remy. One year later he left the clinic, visited his brother in Paris, then went on to Auver-sur-Oise to stay and receive treatment from Dr. Paul Gachet. Toward the end of his stay at Saint Remy, van Gogh became nostalgic and reminisced over scenes from his childhood.
In the last 10 weeks of his life, while in the care of the doctor, he created over 100 pieces including The Church at Auvers, a scene from his youth created out of memory. This painting embodies van Gogh’s best work and a great example of his genre. Classically a post-impressionist piece, he uses rich vivid colors emphasizing shape and distorting form to express emotion.
The foreground seems to be in daylight, whereas the church itself and the sky seem to be in shadow, nearly a night scene. The church’s form is distorted adding a feel of gloom to the scene. Van Gogh wrote to his sister that it is “nearly the same thing as the studies I did in Nuenen of the old tower and the cemetery…” A church painted in this manner may reflect van Gogh’s feeling about the church and religion after his failed studies as a preacher and missionary.
In the last 10 weeks of his life, while in the care of the doctor, he created over 100 pieces including The Church at Auvers, a scene from his youth created out of memory. This painting embodies van Gogh’s best work and a great example of his genre. Classically a post-impressionist piece, he uses rich vivid colors emphasizing shape and distorting form to express emotion.
The foreground seems to be in daylight, whereas the church itself and the sky seem to be in shadow, nearly a night scene. The church’s form is distorted adding a feel of gloom to the scene. Van Gogh wrote to his sister that it is “nearly the same thing as the studies I did in Nuenen of the old tower and the cemetery…” A church painted in this manner may reflect van Gogh’s feeling about the church and religion after his failed studies as a preacher and missionary.
Thursday, 27 January 2011
+ I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed.
+ I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.
+ An artist needn’t be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.
+ I see more and more that my work goes infinitely better when I am properly fed, and the paints are there, and the studio and all that. But have I set my heart on my work being a success? A thousand times no. I wish I could manage to make you really understand that when you give money to artists, you are yourself doing an artist's work, and that I only want my pictures to be of such a quality that you will not be too dissatisfied with your work.
+ If I were to think of and dwell on disastrous possibilities, I could do nothing. I throw myself headlong into my work, and come up again with my studies; if the storm within gets too loud, I take a glass too much to stun myself.
+ You can't be at the pole and the equator at the same time. You must choose your own line, as I hope to do, and it will probably be color.
+ I am not strictly speaking mad, for my mind is absolutely normal in the intervals, and even more so than before. But during the attacks it is terrible - and then I lose consciousness of everything. But that spurs me on to work and to seriousness, as a miner who is always in danger makes haste in what he does.
+ I am risking my life for my work, and half my reason has gone.
+ I certainly hope to sell in the course of time, but I think I shall be able to influence it most effectively by working steadily on, and that at the present moment making desperate efforts to force the work I am doing now upon the public would be pretty useless.
+ My opinion is that the best thing would be to work on till art lovers feel drawn toward it of their own accord, instead of having to praise or to explain it.
+ I tell you, the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
+ The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting.
+ I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say 'he feels deeply, he feels tenderly.'
+ The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.
+ It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.
Vincent Van Gogh
+ I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.
+ An artist needn’t be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.
+ I see more and more that my work goes infinitely better when I am properly fed, and the paints are there, and the studio and all that. But have I set my heart on my work being a success? A thousand times no. I wish I could manage to make you really understand that when you give money to artists, you are yourself doing an artist's work, and that I only want my pictures to be of such a quality that you will not be too dissatisfied with your work.
+ If I were to think of and dwell on disastrous possibilities, I could do nothing. I throw myself headlong into my work, and come up again with my studies; if the storm within gets too loud, I take a glass too much to stun myself.
+ You can't be at the pole and the equator at the same time. You must choose your own line, as I hope to do, and it will probably be color.
+ I am not strictly speaking mad, for my mind is absolutely normal in the intervals, and even more so than before. But during the attacks it is terrible - and then I lose consciousness of everything. But that spurs me on to work and to seriousness, as a miner who is always in danger makes haste in what he does.
+ I am risking my life for my work, and half my reason has gone.
+ I certainly hope to sell in the course of time, but I think I shall be able to influence it most effectively by working steadily on, and that at the present moment making desperate efforts to force the work I am doing now upon the public would be pretty useless.
+ My opinion is that the best thing would be to work on till art lovers feel drawn toward it of their own accord, instead of having to praise or to explain it.
+ I tell you, the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
+ The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting.
+ I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say 'he feels deeply, he feels tenderly.'
+ The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.
+ It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.
Vincent Van Gogh
+ The Louvre is the book in which we learn to read.
+ It took me 40 years to find out that painting is not sculpture.
+ Don't be an art critic, but paint, there lies salvation.
+ What is one to think of those fools who tell one that the artist is always subordinate to nature? Art is in harmony parallel with nature.
+ A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.
+ All my life I have worked to be able to earn my living, but I thought that one could do good painting without attracting attention to one's private life. Certainly, an artist wishes to raise himself intellectually as much as possible, but the man must remain obscure. The pleasure must be found in the work. paul Cezanne
+ It took me 40 years to find out that painting is not sculpture.
+ Don't be an art critic, but paint, there lies salvation.
+ What is one to think of those fools who tell one that the artist is always subordinate to nature? Art is in harmony parallel with nature.
+ A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.
+ All my life I have worked to be able to earn my living, but I thought that one could do good painting without attracting attention to one's private life. Certainly, an artist wishes to raise himself intellectually as much as possible, but the man must remain obscure. The pleasure must be found in the work. paul Cezanne
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)