Corey Rybka
Professor Purdy
English 101
12/13/10
Vincent van Gogh: A Postimpressionist
There are many artistic movements, but none of them are truly the same. Each artistic movement has its own unique traits, artists, and paintings. Some people choose to look at one artistic movement differently then others do. But, one thing that is for sure is that all of these movements played a part in shaping the world that we live in today. This paper will examine just one of the many artistic movements, postimpressionism. Along the way in taking a broad scope of the post impression movement, this paper will highlight one of the most famous artists, Vincent van Gogh. Not only will this paper highlight van Gogh’s life, but it will also take a look at three of his most famous paintings in direct correlation with the post impression artistic movement.
In order to find out what van Gogh is about it is essential to first take a look at what artistic movement he came from. The artistic movement that is given credit with the rise of Vincent van Gogh is the post impression artistic movement. When looking at the post impression movement it is crucial to first identify what the era really was. According to Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, “Postimpressionism is a term used to generally describe the pictorial art movements that succeed impressionism. Initially the term was applied to the styles developed during the last two decades of the 19th century by the French painters Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Georges Seurat, and by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. Cézanne, Gauguin, and van Gogh first used the style in reference to an exhibition of paintings in London in 1910” (Funk). All of these painters are credited with having a subjective view of the world, except for Seurat, seeing as he is only considered to be a postimpressionist due to his use of impressionist color techniques. The reason the postimpressionist painters differ from their predecessors, impressionists, is simply because they disagreed with the impressionists use of color in an effort to show light. The postimpressionists prided themselves on there ability to have an unlimited range of use with both form and color. When examining how van Gogh fell directly into this artistic movement it was thought that his use of, “Vivid, often strident, colors would evoke powerful spiritual and emotional meanings from his subjects” (Funk). It was even thought that van Gogh and his artwork foreshadowed expressionism. Postimpressionism has often been compared to quite a few other artistic movements of the 20th-century including, surrealism, cubism, expressionism, futurism, and Fauvism.
The next step in researching this topic is to understand how Vincent van Gogh was involved with the movement. By doing that it is important to understand the background of van Gogh. According to the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, “Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853 and died in 1890. He was a postimpressionist painter from the Netherlands. His brief, turbulent, and tragic life is thought to epitomize the mad genius legend. Only one of Van Gogh's paintings was sold while he lived. The great majority of the works by which he is remembered were produced in 29 months of frenzied activity and sporadic bouts with seizures and profound despair, which caused him to end his life in suicide” (Columbia). In order to better understand van Gogh it is crucial to go deeper into his crazed life. Van Gogh was a troubled soul and was unable to make female friends, let alone any type of friends. Van Gogh’s personality was viewed to be very fickle and hard to understand. Considering this every woman that attempted to get close to him was scared off because they knew they could not commit to him. Not only were women hard, but also male friends were just as hard to come by. Van Gogh was often in too much of a depressed mood to put aside his views and therefore always had to argue with any friends he had, because he always had to be right. The only true, friend, family, and supporter was his younger brother Theo. Since Theo was the only person Vincent could really express himself to, he decided to write him letters in order to explain everything he was going through and everything he wanted to do with his life. Theo was the only person that van Gogh could turn to in his messed up life and some believe that without Theo Vincent’s life may have ended even shorter then it did.
The next stage of Vincent’s life is where everything culminates for him. He decides that, “In August of 1880 he is going to abandon is evangelical work in order to begin drawing. With his drawings he starts to seriously consider becoming an artist. He turns to Willem Roelofs and Anthon G. A. Ridder van Rappard for advice on how to pursue his goal. They direct him towards the Academie des Beaux-Arts where he begins his true journey to becoming an artist” (Stein 13). Vincent’s early works were considered to be a part of the Dutch period. This period ranged from the years 1880 to 1885. His paintings during this time period were mainly quite dark and lacked a wide range of color. He focused solely on the peasants that were around him on a daily basis, especially in one of his most notable paintings, The Potato Eaters. When talking about this painting van Gogh is quoted in a book saying, “I have tried to emphasize that those people eating their potatoes in the lamplight have dug the earth with those very hands they put into the dish and so it speaks of manual labour and how they have honestly earned their food” (Feaver 46). Vincent even explains that the colors he uses in the painting resemble a dusty unpeeled potato. I found this to be very interesting and I must say that this painting definitely catches my eye every time that I see it. The painting, to me, evokes hope in a time in which despair seemed to be around every corner. This painting will always be an all-time great simply due to the fact that everyone reaches a certain point in their life where they feel like giving up. However, van Gogh was able to create this wonderful piece in order to remind us that nothing is ever too far out of reach with the right amount of work put in to achieve what it is you want.
Moving forward out of his first five years as an artist, van Gogh is given the opportunity to pass through the Dutch period, when in 1886 he was able to meet up with his brother, Theo in Paris. It is in Paris where Vincent was able to get the chance to meet a few of the great French postimpressionist painters. One of the most influential artists that van Gogh meets is Pissarro. Pissarro is able to persuade Vincent to try using more colors in his artwork. This ended up being one of the most important words of advice van Gogh will ever receive and his artwork immediately begins to perk up with his newfound success in mixing up his color palette. At Arles in May of 1888 van Gogh rented out four rooms as a studio in the “Yellow House.” This is where Vincent paints his beautiful Fourteen Sunflowers in a Vase. This painting has been viewed in many ways, but the easiest way to understand this piece is to consider the fact that, “The sunflowers were a decorative scheme that represented van Gogh’s idea of ‘an association of painters’. They were supposed to cast a benign glow over the work he and Gauguin would undertake. As he admitted a year later, ‘to attain the high yellow note that I attained last summer I really had to be pretty well keyed up’” (Feaver 82). The way I view this fantastic painting is that van Gogh simply wanted to show he was ready to make some real works of art with Gauguin and he felt that a good way to show him he was truly ready would be to offer him some of his best work. The sunflower painting is able to bring out a lot of feelings in me. I first love the brightness of the painting because when you look at it, it is very hard not to feel a little bit of warmth and comfort inside. Secondly, the way in which the flowers are pointing in all directions, and the fact that each one is different just makes for a unique quality in the painting that you rarely see in other works. Overall, the painting is a great piece and can most certainly make a bad day brighter. Unfortunately, this painting does not really play out the way van Gogh wants it too, seeing as shortly after completion he and Gauguin quarrel which results in van Gogh cutting off his own ear due to a serious case of dementia.
Moving forward out of his first five years as an artist, van Gogh is given the opportunity to pass through the Dutch period, when in 1886 he was able to meet up with his brother, Theo in Paris. It is in Paris where Vincent was able to get the chance to meet a few of the great French postimpressionist painters. One of the most influential artists that van Gogh meets is Pissarro. Pissarro is able to persuade Vincent to try using more colors in his artwork. This ended up being one of the most important words of advice van Gogh will ever receive and his artwork immediately begins to perk up with his newfound success in mixing up his color palette. At Arles in May of 1888 van Gogh rented out four rooms as a studio in the “Yellow House.” This is where Vincent paints his beautiful Fourteen Sunflowers in a Vase. This painting has been viewed in many ways, but the easiest way to understand this piece is to consider the fact that, “The sunflowers were a decorative scheme that represented van Gogh’s idea of ‘an association of painters’. They were supposed to cast a benign glow over the work he and Gauguin would undertake. As he admitted a year later, ‘to attain the high yellow note that I attained last summer I really had to be pretty well keyed up’” (Feaver 82). The way I view this fantastic painting is that van Gogh simply wanted to show he was ready to make some real works of art with Gauguin and he felt that a good way to show him he was truly ready would be to offer him some of his best work. The sunflower painting is able to bring out a lot of feelings in me. I first love the brightness of the painting because when you look at it, it is very hard not to feel a little bit of warmth and comfort inside. Secondly, the way in which the flowers are pointing in all directions, and the fact that each one is different just makes for a unique quality in the painting that you rarely see in other works. Overall, the painting is a great piece and can most certainly make a bad day brighter. Unfortunately, this painting does not really play out the way van Gogh wants it too, seeing as shortly after completion he and Gauguin quarrel which results in van Gogh cutting off his own ear due to a serious case of dementia.
This act ends up sending Vincent to Arles Hospital where he receives the medical attention he needs for his ear and heals up a bit. He is then transferred out directly to the asylum at Saint-Remy. It is there in the summer of 1889 that he paints his breath-taking piece Starry Night. This artwork is easily one of van Gogh's most notable pieces and could, with little dispute, quite possibly be his most famous. The painting itself has been linked to outside sources like Shakespeare which van Gogh may have read while at Saint-Remy, “That summer at Saint-Remy van Gogh had been reading Shakespeare. Hence, perhaps, ‘the floor of heaven…thick inlaid with patines of bright gold’. By late June (when he painted Starry Night) he was half way, he said, thorough Henry V, reaching the finest rhetoric. The bars of the cell have fallen away. The cypresses aspire. ‘Under the great starlit vault of heaven something which after all one can only call God’” (Feaver 106). In my opinion this painting is quite stunning and I feel that if I were to buy one piece of artwork this would definitely be right at the very tip top of the list. When I examine this painting for myself I cannot help but take in the intricate brushstrokes he uses to paint this piece. The clouds, stars, and town all seem to swirl into one giant cluster, making it seem as if they are all meant to intertwine with one another. It is definitely very difficult to keep my eyes off of this painting and I could only wonder how a man considered to be in a state of dementia could paint something so beautiful. After completing numerous paintings van Gogh finds himself feeling great pain for all his wrong doings in life. He feels that everything he has done has been a mistake and that he has caused the most pain to his brother Theo, whom he considers himself closest too. Vincent decides to paint one last piece, before finally taking his own life.
The link between van Gogh and Postimpressionism is easy to see in each and every one of his paintings. Vincent has many qualities of a great painter, “It can be maintained that his art, like that of any major artist, is personal and expressive, yet, rather than being an expressionist, van Gogh creates images of reality which unite artist and nature, mood and design. He is an artist who could identify himself with the tremors of nature, inevitably employing his imagination in the service of its representation” (Donnell 68-69). Vincent van Gogh speaks true volumes of what it means to be a postimpressionist artist. His tragic life may pose a lot of questions, and many people will view him as a very sick man who claimed to have dementia. However, when you are able to look past his tragedy it is easy to find how van Gogh should be remembered, for ten years of his life, in which he painted pieces of art that will last an eternity.
Works Cited
"Vincent Van Gogh." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition (2010): 1. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 19 Nov. 2010.
Donnell-Kotrozo, Carol. Critical Essays on Postimpressionism. Philadelphia: Art Alliance, 1983. Print.
Feaver, William. Van Gogh. London: Studio Editions, 1992. Print.
"POSTIMPRESSIONISM." (n.d.): Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia. EBSCO. Web. 19 Nov. 2010.
Gogh, Vincent Van, and Susan Alyson. Stein. Van Gogh: a Retrospective. China: S.n., 1986. Print.
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