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Vincent van Gogh's paintings and drawings

vangoghmuseum.nl

41–50 of 129 posts

Re: Vincent van Gogh's paintings and drawings

#41

For an art noob, can someone help me understand why the perspective is off in so many of them? I know that he's a master and I don't want to contest that, but the perspective being off feels a little...amateurish? Or is that an intentional choice? If it is, would love to know the 'why' of it

Van Gogh was heavily inspired by Japanese woodprints, which often utilized 1-point perspective, leading to a sort of "flat" look. When it comes to his understanding of perspective, Van Gogh was so obsessed with realism that he never drew from imagination and even used/invented his own physical perspective grid to check his work. And for why his work might appear "amateurish": this was a deliberate style choice by Van…

Its worth bringing up that his shaky mental state was probably very influential on his work.

Re: Vincent van Gogh's paintings and drawings

#42
post #19

The FAQ on that site has an entry for "Where is ‘The Starry Night’?" and its answer is at Museum of Modern Art in NYC. Where it happens that I saw it a few weeks ago, as part of a big Van Gogh exhibition with many of his paintings. I have to say that if you have a chance to go to that, or to another Van Gogh exhibition, I really recommend it. From what I understand, not everyone resonates with his work. In fact I bel…

If anyone's ever in the Netherlands for more than a couple of days, I'd highly recommend checking out the Kröller-Müller Museum. It has the second-largest collection of Van Gogh paintings [1], but also a sizeable number of paintings from the period leading up to his work, and following his work. It's really interesting to see how it fits in the larger developments in the painting world, and feels like his work is a crucial link in the transition from Rembrandt to abstract work like Mondriaan's.

[1] And while you're at it, visit the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam for the largest collection.

Re: Vincent van Gogh's paintings and drawings

#43
post #11
post #6

Not very impressive at the painfully low resolution you download the images at. You can zoom in for a larger view, but the website does all it can to prevent users from actually downloading the high resolution image. Pathetic for a museum.

You need to learn to scrape better: https://iiif.micr.io/qDCTO/full/1800,/0/default.jpg

Or use https://dezoomify.ophir.dev/

Re: Vincent van Gogh's paintings and drawings

#44

For an art noob, can someone help me understand why the perspective is off in so many of them? I know that he's a master and I don't want to contest that, but the perspective being off feels a little...amateurish? Or is that an intentional choice? If it is, would love to know the 'why' of it

I don't really think I got it until I saw one in person.

It was only a faily small piece but the guy really gobbed so much paint on there that it looked like the flowers on it were real and sticking out of the painting. It was really quite impressive and I don't think I've seen anything quite like it since.

I think you could probably label the whole field of post-impressionism as just being smudgy or whatever, and it is a really easy style to copy (People have been doing it for like 100+ years now) so I can see where the idea that it's amateurish comes from. But you have to understand it came from a time where people would really deride your work if it didn't fit along established lines and that people like him really pushed the boundaries of what was considered acceptable to call "art" in their contemporary time.

Re: Vincent van Gogh's paintings and drawings

#45
post #31

I went to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam because I was there and it was on the bucket list. Pictures in a book or on web pages do not do justice to how vibrant the pictures are in real life. Plus, in the days before additional security was required, you could go right up to them (within reason) and check them out up close. They look like they were painted yesterday. Not everyone likes his work but I'm a fan.

Next time your in the Netherlands, check out the Kröller-Müller museum. Its collection was created by an art lover who was one of the first to appreciate van Gogh. Although its collection is a bit smaller than that of the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, it is, I think, of a higher quality.

Plus, bonus nature environment, it's not as touristy as Amsterdam. I mean it's a tourist area for sure, but without the bustle of Amsterdam.

I went there once right after new year's, the museum and restaurant were closed but it was so quiet elsewhere, it was great.

Re: Vincent van Gogh's paintings and drawings

#46
post #19

The FAQ on that site has an entry for "Where is ‘The Starry Night’?" and its answer is at Museum of Modern Art in NYC. Where it happens that I saw it a few weeks ago, as part of a big Van Gogh exhibition with many of his paintings. I have to say that if you have a chance to go to that, or to another Van Gogh exhibition, I really recommend it. From what I understand, not everyone resonates with his work. In fact I bel…

I was never a fan of Van Gogh until I saw Starry Night in person at MOMA in NYC. The thing that jumps out at me is literally the paint on the painting. There is a lot of height to it. The paint is so thick in sections that it sticks out far above the canvas that it can cause a shadow next to it. We tend to think of paintings as 2 dimensional but Starry Night is 3D and seeing it online or in a book or poster is not th…

https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/462 has a nice page where they did a high res 3d scan + model of the painting that you can explore on there; the only thing missing I think is that you can't change the light source.

Re: Vincent van Gogh's paintings and drawings

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next time your in the Netherlands, check out the Kröller-Müller museum. Its collection was created by an art lover who was one of the first to appreciate van Gogh. Although its collection is a bit smaller than that of the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, it is, I think, of a higher quality.

Plus, bonus nature environment, it's not as touristy as Amsterdam. I mean it's a tourist area for sure, but without the bustle of Amsterdam. I went there once right after new year's, the museum and restaurant were closed but it was so quiet elsewhere, it was great.

Yep! You can grab a free bike and go for a ride around the park surrounding the museum. Highly recommend it

Re: Vincent van Gogh's paintings and drawings

#48
post #2

Only the visible spectrum, with light coming from one direction only? Researchers will probably want more.

I am intrigued by your comment. Is there a real effort to photograph paintings in nonvisible spectrum and fuller set of angles?

OpenSeaDragon https://openseadragon.github.io/examples/in-the-wild/ (an open source package that can provide the deep zooming experience just like MicrIO used for these paintings) has been used for this collection:

http://boschproject.org/book_links.html

where you can compare the visible light with some kind of UV (I guess? you have to buy the book to find out), eg:

http://boschproject.org/view.html?mode=curtain&layout=top-ma...

Re: Vincent van Gogh's paintings and drawings

#49
post #19

The FAQ on that site has an entry for "Where is ‘The Starry Night’?" and its answer is at Museum of Modern Art in NYC. Where it happens that I saw it a few weeks ago, as part of a big Van Gogh exhibition with many of his paintings. I have to say that if you have a chance to go to that, or to another Van Gogh exhibition, I really recommend it. From what I understand, not everyone resonates with his work. In fact I bel…

the yellow paint in "A Starry Night" is made with what was called "Indian Cow Yellow".

It's made by feeding cows nothing but mango leaves and dehydrating their urine to a paste.

Now you know...

Re: Vincent van Gogh's paintings and drawings

#50
post #31

I went to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam because I was there and it was on the bucket list. Pictures in a book or on web pages do not do justice to how vibrant the pictures are in real life. Plus, in the days before additional security was required, you could go right up to them (within reason) and check them out up close. They look like they were painted yesterday. Not everyone likes his work but I'm a fan.

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