Vincent Van Gogh : Portrait of a Peasant - Essay Example

1 Samriddhi Victoria 7 May2006 Vincent Van Gogh : Portrait of a Peasant Vincent Van Gogh,the eldest of six children was born to Theodorus van Gogh and Anna Cornelia Carbentus on on March 30, 1853, in Zundert, a village in Brabant, in the south of the Netherlands. He had a good hold on languages, studying French, English, and German. As Van Gogh matured he found he liked painting stuff that effected him emotionally. He then decided that painting is what he wanted for a living. He moved to Paris.

He lived with Theo his relative in Montmartre, an artists' quarter of Paris. The move had a crucial role in the development of his painting style. Theo, who managed the Montmartre branch of Goupil's (now called Boussod, Valadon & Cie), acquainted Vav Gogh with the works of Claude Monet and other Impressionists. Earlier he had known only Dutch painting and the French Realists; now he saw for himself how the Impressionists managed both light and color. Van Gogh,s surrounding had a profound impact on his work.

As he began to create his own artistic identity, he also began integrating his ideas with the ideas of the Impressionists. His canvas grew wider with time integrating daily subject matter . Van Gogh took his subjects from the city's cafs and boulevards, and the open countryside along the Seine River. We also see Van Gogh,s life history has always effected his painting. His emotional darkness made him draw his painting in the dark . When his brother asked him to bring in light and color in his work he complied proving his love for his brother Theo.

Theo too understood the need of the hour that was Impressionism 2 His paintings become brighter and his brushwork more broken over time. Van Gogh created the stippling technique of Neoimpressionism, also called Pointillism.

He took interest in portraiture. He shot to fame when he painted 20 portraits in Paris. After arriving in Paris, Van Gagh realized that his dark-hued palette had become outdated. He also painted studies of flowers, which according to Theo was a "finger exercises"-practice pieces in which he tried to "render intense color and not a gray harmony." As Van Gogh's colors lightened his painting involved landscapes in vivid colors . Vincent regularly painted outdoors in Asnires, a village near Paris.

He also painted the landscapes in Southern France. . Soon Van Gogh's works started getting recognition. The progressive Belgian artists' group Les Vingt included six of his paintings in their 1890 exhibition. Van Gogh set about painting portraits of his new acquaintances in local landscapes, including nearby wheatfields. He worked with great intensity, and focused on country life. Later he went a step further painting the wheatfields, olive groves, and cypress trees of the surrounding countryside.

As Van Gogh had a short stint in the mental asylum , the hard life there gave Van Gogh a hard-won stability. When losing the confidence to execute original works, Vincent regains his bearings by painting copies after his favorite artists, including Millet, Rembrandt and Delacroix. He makes more than twenty copies of Millet's peasant scenes, One of his best known works was the Portrait of a Peasant .Van Gogh has used his signature sign of gold and vibrant colors and thick paint. Every line of the fatigued peasant's face can be seen .

The harshness of fate and the erosion of time is clearly visible. It is noteworthy that Van Gogh gave importance to the working class of that time and also showing his proximity to the peasant class. Vincent Van Gogh continues to be one of the greatest painters of all time.. Bibliography 1.