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I must have been 11 or 12 when I first visited the Art Institute of Chicago. My folks ferried me and my many younger siblings to see cultural stuff in Chicago. We charged through the boring rooms full of blown glass and miniature furniture to see the armor. Then we went off in search of lunch, which meant wandering through rooms full of art. We stopped in the room with the Impressionists, and this painting by Vincent van Gogh caught my attention. I stared for a while, and then I saw the half-hidden thing under the large bush. I never told my brothers about it; it felt like a secret between me and van Gogh. I always return to that painting when I go to the museum.
One day after visiting my old friend, I stopped to look at this self-portrait, and found myself mesmerized again, this time by the face of the artist. It was his expression. Wary? Melancholy?
Years later, I looked at another self-portrait (this is an excellent site for looking closely, use the image viewer). There is a bit of the same expression in his eyes, but what struck me was the background. He paints it as if he could see whorls in the very air. That same set of whorls, in a very similar color, is in the jacket. Look again at the details in the face. Very faintly you can see similar whorls and colors.
This made me see the Art Institute self-portrait in a new light. Van Gogh uses little daubs of paint, which makes sense for his tweed jacket, but why in the background? Look at the flow of the daubs, and the colors, the way they form a set of nearly parallel whorls that flow in a spiral through the air, through the coat and back into the air. There are similar daubs, and a bit of spiral in the beard and the face, they seem focus on his left eye.
I wonder if he felt he was part of the air, part of the light, part of the earth, as if the boundary between his body and the universe was indistinct, as if he only existed at a central core, a knot of being in the numinous?
Or was he just practicing his pointillism? There is no reason to believe that he had any such view as mine, or any purpose other than to paint. We can’t see into his mind, we only see the result, and follow where it leads us. That’s where it led me.
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Which of the self portraits are you referencing? Perhaps the ‘whorls’ are reflective of seeing the real dance we are part of.
Oops; Rayne sent me a better link: http://www.artchive.com/artchive/V/van_gogh/self_2_text.jpg.html
That didn’t work either; here’s a link: http://www.artchive.com/artchive/V/van_gogh/self_2_text.jpg.html
Scary. The man was a genius but he was like a bear trap spring loaded and ready to pop.
Cannot recommend enough a book on Van Gogh, Van Gogh Face to Face: The Portraits. The book was originally published in 2000, in sync with an exhibition of Van Gogh’s portraits featured at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art that same year.
I was fortunate to see the exhibition that year at the DIA and it was mind-blowing, literally too much to see in one visit. The power and force of his portraiture remains all these years later, vibrant, gripping. If readers have never seen his portraiture, run and do when you have the next chance. The colors in texts never reproduce fully the depth and piquancy of the original, nor the exquisite detail of the brush strokes.
Hard to say which is my favorite of his works, because I am also smitten with his landscapes like Road with Cypress and Stars (which looks far too green-ish at that link, try this for comparison), or his other portraits like those of the family Roulin, or his charcoal and pastel sketches.
Nearly every school child is introduced to painting and to Van Gogh in the process; I wonder which of Van Gogh’s works most of us recall earliest? I think I recall the one of a bedroom, because we had a special class in which we analyzed the painting and tried to paint our own rooms in the same manner — including the odd quirk of the irregular floor.
The drawings are really fantastic. I bought a copy of this one when I was in high school: Avenue of Poplars
Goodland KS is in the far western end of the state — a place some would call the middle of nowhere. For those coming into KS from Colorado, Goodland is the first city of any size along I-70 once you cross the KS border heading east.
And there, on the edge of town to welcome these travelers from the west, stands this.
Welcome to the Sunflower State.
Ah, that’s marvelous. Only downside with that would be the fear that a tornado would sweep that away. ;-)
You know, it just dawned on me I have the perfect place for that if I could order a nicely matted print. Perfect and restful in my master suite.
masaccio, thanks so much, great post, great thread.
One of the things I remember from my childhood art appreciation classes was the discussion about VVG’s perspective — how his mental illness and any treatment may have affected his vision, his perception of the world.
Like the painting, Bedroom at Arles; is the floor really that sloped, the room canted, the house sagging, or is this a manifestation of the man’s perception?
Was his use of brilliant yellows and bright blues in part another manifestation? would they be changed by therapy (at the time I think as a kid we talked about lithium)?
Even the use of pointilism, which varied over time – another manifestation?
Great post, masaccio.
What is that thing hidden under the bush? It looks like an animal.
I remember my granddaughter coming home from first grade and talking about what she called “Starry, Starry Night” and did a pretty good job of drawing it, too. I was so proud.
That’s between you and van Gogh.
Better to burn out
than to fade away. . .
Btw, wasn’t that self portrait painted after he lopped off his ear…?
I love that painting. Always reminds me of the Joni Mitchell album Miles of Aisles. A fan yells out a request, Joni laughs and comments about the difference between performance art and fine art, “I’ll bet nobody ever yelled at Van Gogh, ‘Hey, Paint A Starry Night again, man!’”
Masaccio, thank you for your post. If you have a few minutes, you may want to do teh google – and view the youtube of van gough/starry night- a lovely and haunting panarama of Vincent Van Gough’s paintings matched with the just right song. Try and keep a dry eye.
For me, The Potato Eaters was what drew me to his work. His post ear Arles work appears to be the work of an artist who is in tune with his authentic self – world be damned.
I have a friend who has tourettes and is an artist here in Sacramento – Charles Thomas “Ground Chuck.” We watched it together and he shared how difficult it is to be taken seriously as an artist when your out of sync with the so called real world. How many Van Goughs exist in our midst?
The Van Gogh collection in Amsterdam was fantastic.
My favorite painting. And that story is funny.
I’ve heard the whorls in Van Gogh’s work attributed to a type of perception peculiar to regular absinthe users. Of course, once it becomes known that an artist did something like that people start to attribute everything to that cause, rightly or wrongly.
One of my aunts did a watercolor which is very similar to that. It hung in my grandparents’ living room until my grandmother sold that house, then in my parents’ living room.
Wow, that would be a treat!
What’s also funny is that years after I first heard that album I learned that Van Gogh actually DID paint A Starry Night again, several times albeit with different titles.
Like a dream. Far better than all the coffee houses. *s* I left Amsterdam, flew to the Algarve only to end up in a hundred year flood. So I went back to Amsterdam a week later and did Van Gogh again..
I didn’t know that. Stick around here and you learn all sorts of things.
What ever is seen in the work is something put there, by the master painter.
If he wanted it to evoke emotions or questions of perception, that is part of the mystery, of why it so endured over time. I doubt if great painters are concerned about what busy yuppies and middle brows of todays (over culture-inoculated) Hoi Polloi can tease out of a quick look. They painted for the aristocrats, when that meant something.
That said, sure… probably means it’s a glimpse into the ether: seeing through mere solid matter into another realm, and stuff like that, and a very nice piece of work it is.
What a fabulous experience. Makes me wish I had traveled more when I was able.
Van Gogh liked to paint variations on themes. Seems like the Art Institute of Chicago must have at least half a dozen of his self-portraits. I would not be surprised if he painted a hundred more.
I just searched the Art Institute collection and only came up with one Van Gogh self portrait. Perhaps some of the others I recall (from 20 years ago) were on loan.
geoshmoe (27) — having read letters and documents by various artists, I would disagree; many of the finest artists were simply driven to achieve for their own enjoyment. That they also made a living at it helped; it sometimes weeded out the technicians as they produced content on command but not of an enduring nature.
In Van Gogh’s case specifically, he was conscious of the future viewers of his work, writing he wished “to do portraits which will appear as revelations to people in a hundred years’ time.”
And apparently he was successful to this end.
ratfood (29) — he placed a considerable emphasis on portraiture; between his emphasis on the human face and the bursts of productivity he experienced, it’s no wonder there were many pieces which were similar thematically.
van Gogh loved, loved the color yellow. He painted the sunflowers as decoration for the Yellow House he rented for himself and Gauguin in Arles in the fall of 1888. It was the only painting the Gauguin ever loved of Vincent’s work. He hoped to start a “Studio of the South” with Gauguin, but they fought bitterly — and you all know the rest!
This is a wonderful post, Masaccio — many thanks!
rock of ages…….nice!
Ah, I just found something for you, massacio. I remembered I have a book about the Musee d’Orsay and its collection, which includes the Van Gogh self-portrait ca. 1889 with the whorls in the background. It is supposed to be quite similar to another self-portrait painted in Paris in 1888.
The accompanying text under a photo of the painting in the book says that he wrote to his brother Theo about the same painting, “I hope my face is much calmer, though it seems to me that my gaze is cloudier than before.”
Huh. Interesting.
Fascinating. Do you think we can infer that he was trying to paint himself as he felt himself to be as well as what he saw?
So tough to guess without actually reading all of this particular letter, let alone the other letters he and Theo wrote back and forth to each other. I do recall seeing letters between the brothers included in the touring exhibit in 2000, but I cannot recall anything from them (the exhibit was hugely popular, was body-to-body contact with other patrons trying to read these, too).
If I remember correctly from an art class I took later in school, it was suggested to us Van Gogh’s self-portraits appeared to mirror his mental health. I remember looking at a progression of portraits and agreeing with this at the time.
And yet, now, with even more hindsight which comes to persons of a certain age, couldn’t Van Gogh simply have needed glasses? Mix a mild case of presbyopia with the effects of absinthe, and my gaze would be cloudier, too.
Yet another mystery we may not solve.
Here is a great online letter archive for Vincent. I read that he fell ill, then would rally, only to fall victim again and again. Painting was the reflection of his mental state, and you are right that portraiture was really important to him. He disliked painting from memory, and insisted painting from “what he saw.”
http://www.vggallery.com/letters/main.htm
I went there as an art student and enjoyed that display. The post tonight is quite poingant as well. And a very refreshing change of pace. Thank you and Raynes additions. Excellent.
Van Gogh may have had cataracts that caused the light refractions. That is what I see at night the lights is bent by them.
Wow, his mastery of English was terrific. :-)
He spoke fluent Dutch, French and English. I was surprised about the English, and did not know that he was a teacher outside of London (until recently).
Are you kidding me because the letters are translated? heh heh
Vincent may have had cataracts. I see light refractions similarly at night.I went to Amsterdam to the Van Gogh museum as an art student in the 70′s. But this post is very poignant expression of the nuances that artist bring to our lives. Massachio you are a renniasance man, this post is a welcome change and a great contribution to the Lake. I also like the sub contributors Rayne and others. It is the artists that dare challenge the order of things, Shakespeare and a long list, maybe there will be more of these post.Now that is hope for change we can believe in.
I was kidding. I had no idea he was multilingual. A brilliant man, in many respects it would appear.
Hey ratfood, my pal,
neither did I until recently. Really. Recently I had to lead a book group about his years in Arles, and spent three years helping a curator with a Gauguin exhibition. Those two had really bad chemistry!
A couple of years ago, there was a show of Van Gogh’s drawings and he would draw different versions of what he was working on for different friends, accentuating different features. Great stuff. His whole art career was something like 12 or 15 years and he obviously worked very, very hard.
The whorls are also a characteristic of schizophrenic art I have read.
loved this. hope an art post becomes a regular feature at the Lake.
ditto
What thing under the bush???? (!!!!) Cool, btw. Always wanted to find a thing under a bush. Found some others, and its always worth the looking.
I grew up in Chicago and the Art Institute seemed like a friend. Actually the miniature rooms are pretty cool in a very strange way.
I think since he actually was not part of the “art world scene” but was a part of art, he laid out his palette and then went from there. Visually, his forehead stands out, and then all other parts (esp, hair and body) start to blend – via colors and brush strokes – into the universe (background) which is kept ambiguous.
It actually is an interesting visual concept. It was not new, but the brush strokes and the raw emotion was sort of new. Donald Kuspit wrote about Van Gogh’s friend Gaugin in a most interesting way and said that Gaugin was (it is a fab essay and sorry to shave it down-it loses so much) basically painting emotion, not physical reality, but emotional reality. Emotional reality being subjective in a very objective universal way.
I think it is an amazingly honest painting but at the same time it is also amazingly romanticized. Like, his beard, how red is it really? All things visual are bumped into emotional perspective so the viewer knows not only what this person looked like but, almost more importantly, what this person felt about what he looked like and how he felt about himself and the universe in which he found himself.
Just accidentally found this in an insomnia moment, hope I’m not sleep walking and making absolutely no sense. Oh well, that’s what the send button is all about.
Van Gogh went through Japanese period. In the center of “Starry Night,” the cloud swirls remind me of the “Yin-Yang” symbol of Taoism. Though not Japanese, it’s certainly Asian.
Nice post. While it’s unlikely to have been a conscious intention, it always seemed to me that Van Gogh’s short swirling brush strokes and modified pointillism worked pretty well to explain matter as energy. Decades before Einstein’s theory, it seems that in many of Van Gogh’s paintings, things are what they are only because they are energy moving through space at a certain speed.
Fascinating stuff in this thread, like unwrapping a present first thing in the morning.
Thanks for the link to the letters, Christine, I’m going to enjoy reading those.
bigbrother — don’t think I’ve heard about cataracts doing that, although I guess cloudiness makes sense. He seems young to have had cataracts, maybe he had the start of cataracts which allowed him to retain clarity on somethings (like his subjects’ eyes) while letting the background blur and whorl. Thanks for the feedback.
inbf — that thing under the bush is intriguing, isn’t it? I don’t know if the artist has left a picnic there, or what, drives me nuts not to know. As for the colors he used: imagine them intense and saturated. Reprints do not do justice, ever.
Non-CompassionateLiberal — ah, that was the term I was looking for and didn’t find last night; I note that a number of his portraits produced in 1889, the same year as Starry Night, had a distinctly stylistic quality which I would have characterized as Asian. Gives me something to research and learn; was his Japanese period tightly defined by date/time? Thanks!
Oh! Great post! And love the Art Institute. I used to go all the time when it was free on Tuesdays (I think?) when I lived in Chicago.