Monday, 19 May 2014

Vincent Van Gogh - Essay

Through his paintings Van Gogh showed his life, his experiences. He was never understood by the general public and he was always an outsider. Van Gogh was ill and he was living in a mental hospital in Saint-Remy. He cut off a piece of his ear the year before. He was a mad genius and everybody knew it. The pleasure of love was very important to Van Gogh, he said he couldn’t live without love or without a woman.

Ursula Loyer was his very first love but got married to someone else. His cousin Knee, rejected him probably because he couldn’t care for her or her children. He had to end a relationship with a prostitute who he was trying to build a family with because her brother threatened him. As a child Van Gogh was known as a “kind-hearted, friendly, good, pitiful” boy but a servant girl of his family stated that “Vincent had funny, meaning unpleasantly unusual manners.” He was born on the 30TH March 1853 and died on the 29th July 1890 when he shot himself in a Wheatfield in Auvers, France. He died 2 days later at the age of 37.

Vincent Van Gogh influenced the Art of today even though he lived more than 115 years ago. Only one painting was sold during his lifetime and he became famous after his death. He was and still is a big prominence in the Art Movement. He not only inspires us by his artwork but also by the way he lived his life. Somehow through his good and bad, one can see what a livid mastermind he was.

He emphasized on paintings of landscapes, figure, cityscapes, and scenery. His style was ordinary but still had been prejudiced by the impressionism and post-impressionism. His work had a beauty persona, intense rough brush strokes with petite lines and curves around the figure or landscape that he was painting during that time. His paintings gives me a feel of firmness and determination as though he knew exactly what he wanted and how it’s going to look like. It is said that he might also have used the impasto technique, as we know it today to create such stunning paintings. Clearly looking at his paintings, Van Gogh had a big sense of movement while painting, the continues rhythm is very obvious and clear.

I would imagine as Van Gogh had an immense erg to finish a painting. Probably in my opinion he would do the arrangement and placing of things very fast and then start to go into detail. Detail of the movement, flow of the era and color scheme.
 Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, Arles, January 1889, 
Oil on canvas, London, Courtauld Institute. 
The Potato Eaters, Nuenen, April 1885,
 Oil on Canvas, Foundation Van Gogh, Amsterdam. 



One contemporary artist that is inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s work is Stefan Duncan. He is a brilliant artist with beautiful paintings. Stefan wants to be known as America’s Van Gogh. He calls his style as Squigglism which is vivid colors blended together in an imaginative elegance. 

Westeria on a Red Day 
by Stefan Duncan 









 "What Dreams May Come" 
by Stefan Duncan 


The Path to Take 
by Stefan Duncan 











As soon as I saw Stefan's paintings I completely loved them. His work is yes very similar to Van Gogh's. I do feel though that their is still some style that is just his. In the painting 'Westeria on a Red Day', he uses the same technique but they are more defined then Van Gogh's. They seem more extended and detailed. The second painting, "What Dreams May Come" gives me a more sense of smudge technique even though there is Van Gogh's intellectual feel. 'The Path to Take' is surprisingly my favourite from his work.
Surprisingly because I usually don't like dark paintings. The contrast better the grays and the red/coral is very interesting. Overall I found Stefan Duncan's painting very beautiful and seems to interpret Van Gogh's technique very good. 

Harvard Referencing System: 
Confidential Concepts, worldwide, USA, 2004. Vincent Van Gogh.
Van Gogh Gallery.2002-2013. Vincent Van Gogh Impact on Art. [Online] Available at: http://www.vangoghgallery.com/misc/impact.html [Accessed 20 May 2014]
Artable.2014.Vincent Van Gogh Style and Technique. [Online] Available at: http://www.artble.com/artists/vincent_van_gogh/more_information/style_and_technique [Accessed 20 May 2014] 

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