51–60 of 129 posts
Luxury that's worthless if you are chased by heat and thirst
The book is based largely on a collection of letters between Vincent and his brother Theo and is quite moving sometimes.
I recommend it!
Only the visible spectrum, with light coming from one direction only? Researchers will probably want more.
I have times when I am deeply touched by a ordinary moment. I see a person walking on a dirt country road. Or a mother look at her daughter with utter love. And those things I would like to share with others, so I have tried to paint. I am not a good painter.
But I do think every person should try to express those moments that touch them - in some media or another. And who knows, if you try to paint something perhaps someone will see it and it will take their breath away.
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.
I think also that I had seen very few of his paintings in person and when you see his late works, after he figured out what he was, they explode off the canvas like nothing I've ever seen before. My wife and I went home and bought a reproduction we were so moved, and then promptly decided not to hang it when it arrived as it lacks that....whatever factor it is in his real works that make them shimmer like something from another plane of spacetime.
I really recommend people who don't like van Gogh to visit that museum.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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 just went the other day, and it was definitely worth seeing.
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.
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…
He didn't just paint, he carved.
That was the thing that really 'made' Van Gogh for me. The en plain air mixing of globs very thick paints on the canvas took a lot of technical skill and mastery. I've tried doing it myself, and honestly, modern store-bought paints aren't up to the task. Getting the oil just right is really difficult. You have to have a consistency a bit south of the stiff-peaks phase of whipped eggs (sorry for mixing domains here, I don't know how else to describe it). Once you get a hold of your paints, you can start to learn how to do this on vertically held canvases, but it's still really difficult.
Then, you have to put the emotion and ease of use into your hand sweeps. His carving of the paint was obviously done in smooth motions with little going back for touch-ups. Just a glob, swooshed on, then mixing in the oil with another swooshing and beating, all globbed up on the canvas. Getting that energy and skill together is, again, really hard.
Seeing Van Gogh, in natural light, up close, really changed my mind on him. So much so that I've tried to replicate his paintings and have gotten no where close. A true master and innovator, in my mind.
The best way I have come to understand art is that for a moment it lets me experience how it felt to be another person. When I see some of Van Gogh's works, take the Church at Auvers, or Starry Night, I feel like I can understand the overwhelming beauty - how he felt - when he looked at a church or the night sky. I have times when I am deeply touched by a ordinary moment. I see a person walking on a dirt country road…
After all, the use of light and composition are almost universial concepts.