Vincent Van Gogh, "Saint-Remy, Road with Cypress and Star"

 

  By special request, this week I am featuring one of the world's most famous artists, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890).  Most people know only the highlights of his life, and even those have been caught up in legend.  A few years ago there was even a song about him and his famous painting, "Starry Night", which greatly romanticized his life.  To truly understand this artist is to view his work and read his letters to his brother, Theo.   
   So here we have a wonderful painting done the same year he died, and very similar to "Starry Night" containing the same swirling brush stokes that create so much movement.  If a strong wind is whipping the land and sky, why aren't the trees bent? What is this painting about?   I love the human presence.  The two men walking and the horse with buggy provide a size dimension.  Wow, that is a tall cypress tree!  It can't even fit inside the canvas.  
   Notice the composition.  We have two main triangles in the lower section, with the large vertical tree pulling them up, and sending our eye right up to the star and moon.  I find this a lovely scene.   A scene very much alive.   But is it night or day?  The sky tells us it is night, but so many people out at night, and the road seems very lit?    
   I did find another title for this work:  "Country Road in Provence by Night"  
  Again this week, no specific answers, only a scene for us to enjoy and create our own story.    

   Van Gogh created this oil on canvas in May, 1890.   It measures 36 inches high, 28.7 wide.  It is part of the permanent collection of the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands.   Many years ago, I had the delightful experience of going to this museum.  It was quite a journey from Amsterdam, but one of my favorite traveling memories.    
                                    Make Art a part of your life, it's a beautiful thing to do.

Comments

  1. Char HarguthSeptember 21, 2021 at 7:42 AM

    Revisiting Van Gogh always makes me appreciate his work more. The brush strokes just flow gracefully into shapes and the rhythm seems to invite an accompaniment. I notice the triangle has a dark outline. The shades of color support the movement and leads our eye. Is a troubled mind reaching outside the boundary like the cypress tree? Is there a lake in the background? Are the horse and buggy going downhill? I find it interesting that the grass flows to the right and the road flows to the left. Everything balances. So skillful.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wayne Thiebaud, Sunset Streets

Image
   In giving title to this landscape, California artist, Wayne Thiebaud not only provides the location, but also the time of day.  Knowing that Thiebaud is a California artist provides the last clue to guessing the probably location.  Smartly, The San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art purchased this painting for its permanent collection in 1986, a year after it was completed.  Sunset Streets is an oil on canvas measuring 48" x 35".      Wayne Thiebaud was born in 1920 and resides in California. He is one of several artists creating a distinct California aesthetic using heavy pigment and exaggerated color.   He is best known for his commonplace objects, figures, and landscapes. of which this is a perfect example.    The composition of this work is amazing.  Right down the center, at a slight tilt is this blue-black stripe, K shape, beginning with a heavy base and capped with a large triangle of sorts.  The painting is a geometry lover's dream, completely dedicated to ever
Read more

Nature Abhors A Vacuum, Helen Frankenthraller

Image
  Today let us look at an acrylic painting on canvas by American artist Helen Frankenthraller (1928-2011).    Nature Abhors a Vacuum is a huge work of art measuring 103" high, 112" wide.  This is over 8 feet high and 9 feet long!  You can stand next to it at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.; and to do so would completely immerse yourself in this huge spread of color.   Nature Abhors a Vacuum was painted in 1973 and is a perfect example of a school of painting Frankenthraller helped develop called color field painting.  Here she stretched raw unprimed canvas on the floor and poured thinned acrylic paint on it.  In doing so she created floating fields of translucent color.  Being that the canvas was raw, the paint stuck to the fabric more like it was dyed, than brushed on. It was an exciting and new process!    Our title, Nature Abhors a Vacuum  immediately indicates a landscape, however I think it a disservice to confine our reaction to so simple an understan
Read more

Childe Hassam "The Avenue in Rain"

Image
    I probably should have saved this for the 4th of July, but that is a little far off and this work is among Childe Hassam's finest.      I have known of Childe Hassam (1859 - 1935) for a very long time, but only recently did Wikimedia straighten me out about the correct way to pronounce his first name.  It seems the "e" is silent; and his last name is pronounced as written, with two syllables.        From what I have read, Hassam was a pretty sharp guy, and possibly a little  arrogant.  He created 3,000 some works of art in his career and lived his entire adult life on the proceeds of their sale.  This is quite remarkable.  Most artists, (at least before 1930) had to supplement their income by teaching, commissioned portraits or careers outside the art field.  But Hassam figured out not only how to market his work, but also what subjects would be popular.  Timing is always a big issue, and he was at the forefront of marketing impressionist paintings to Americans.      
Read more