One of the art works exhibited in the Legion of Honor museum, a subsidiary of the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco (FAMSF), is Vincent van Gogh’s Flower Beds in Holland (1883). The FAMSF commissioned van Gogh’s work from the Intimate Impressionism collection of the National Gallery of Art. Art works in the museum will be exhibited from May 11 to August 3 this year. Van Gogh’s Flower Beds in Holland is considered a Post-Impressionist painting because it represents the artist’s subjective views or perspective of the world, particularly of nature. Since Post-Impressionist views are subjective, artists including van Gogh use different colors in their work, particularly colors that contrast with another, to create vivid illustrations that represent their idiosyncratic outlook about nature and the world (Brodskaia, 28). Later on, Van Gogh’s work will be compared to Claude Monet’s Autumn Effect at Argenteuil.
Post-impressionism was artists’ response to impressionism. Impressionism places emphasis on light as well as defined brush strokes. Essentially, impressionism does not adhere to traditional practices involving structure such as the use of lines and shapes. Considering this weakness of impressionism, post-impressionist artists sought to restore structure. Although post-impressionism adopted style and technique from impressionism, such as the application of defined brush strokes, artists generally emphasized the importance of basing works on structure (Cunningham & Reich, 476). The mix between some impressionist techniques and structure is evident in Van Gogh’s Flower Beds in Holland and Monet’s Autumn Effect at Argenteuil because while the artists made short, repetitive brush strokes to create an impression of subjectivity, they also used lines and shapes to establish structure.
Flower Beds in Holland was painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1883 while he was in the Hague. Van Gogh lived in Hague from 1881 until 1883, during which he studied oil painting (Fell & van Gogh, 14). Flower Beds in Holland was one of van Gogh’s earliest works. Van Gogh used oil to paint on a 48.9 by 66.6 centimeter canvas mounted on a wood frame (Leondes, 193). Later on, van Gogh learned to master his craft by working with other artists while in Paris, France, including Camille Pissaro, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Paul Gauguin, through which he learned more about Impressionism. As an artist, van Gogh always wanted to see and study nature that lived under the sky, so to speak, which is why his works mostly depict landscapes or the countryside, Flower Beds in Holland included. The painting shows a flower farm in Holland with various flower beds of different colors – beds of blue, yellow, white, and pink flowers. Van Gogh used short and repetitive brush strokes in order to show the hackles of the flowers. Interpreting the painting is straightforward not only because of the landscape but also because of the title. Hence, it is recognizable for viewers because van Gogh simply wanted to depict the flower farm in Holland.
Autumn Effect at Argenteuil was painted by Claude Monet in 1873. Monet used oil paint as a medium on a 55 x 74.5 centimeter canvas mounted on a wood frame. Monet’s work depicts the town of Argenteuil in Paris, France (Berg, 202). The foreground of the painting is the River Seine and behind the body of water are the structures in Argenteuil – houses, a church, and factories. Aside from the landscape, Monet seems to have focused on the changing of the seasons. The varying shades of the leaves of trees in the foreground, reflected on the water, illustrate the manifestations of changing seasons. Monet used different colors, the most prominent being different hues of blues, green, orange-yellow, and tinted white. Monet used complementary colors – orange-yellow hues and light to dark green hues – to depict the changing of the seasons. Monet painted Autumn Effect at Argenteuil while he was riding a boat in the Seine. The painting also depicts perspective because there is order in the scenery and the view meets to a point in the background – in the town of Argenteuil. At the foreground is the river stretching further in the water to the trees, all the way back to the edge of the Seine by the town.
Van Gogh’s Flower Beds in Holland and Monet’s Autumn Effect at Argenteuil share similarities and differences. Both art works are subjective, such that the paintings depict the subjective perspective of the artists of the scenery. Monet rode a boat while painting Autumn Effect at Argenteuil while Van Gogh saw the flower farm daily while he lived in Holland. Van Gogh and Monet also juxtaposed colors, the former to recreate the varying colors of the flowers in the field and the latter to recreate the effect of the changing seasons on nature. Proportion or balance also exists in both art works with two houses in Flower Beds in Holland and two trees in Autumn Effect at Argenteuil balancing the images. Van Gogh and Monet also used short and repetitive brush strokes to represent their vivid views of nature. Nevertheless, these two art works differ because while Flower Beds in Holland focus on a one-point perspective, Autumn Effect at Argenteuil do so by emphasizing a wider perspective of the view of Argenteuil.
Conclusion
Van Gogh’s Flower Beds in Holland and Monet’s Autumn Effect at Argenteuil illustrate post-impressionist style or technique in art. Post-impressionism was French artists’ response to the limitations and shortcomings of impressionism. While impressionism focuses on the illustration of light and application of short brush strokes, this style does not incorporate structure. French artists thought that structure in art is important so they incorporated it to impressionist styles, consequently bringing about post-impressionism. Since van Gogh was highly advised by French artists, he adopted post-impressionist styles and techniques, which is evident in his works. Flower Beds in Holland show van Gogh’s short and detailed brush strokes and use of colors to establish a luminous effect, while also paying attention to structure, particularly lines, shapes, and point of view. Monet similarly employed the same technique in Autumn Effect at Argenteuil.
Works Cited
Berg, William J. Imagery and ideology: Fiction and painting in nineteenth-century France. Associated University Press, 2007.
Brodskaia, Nathalia. Post-impressionism. Parkstone International, 2010.
Cunningham, Lawrence & Reich, John. Culture and values: A survey of humanities with readings, Vol. 2. Florence, KY: Cengage Learning, 2009.
Fell, Derek & van Gogh, Vincent. Van Gogh’s gardens. Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Leondes, Cornelius T. Knowledge-based systems: techniques and applications. New York, NY: Academic Press, 2000.
National Gallery of Art. Vincent van Gogh. <http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/features/slideshows/vincent-van-gogh.html>.
Staszkow, Ronald & Bradshaw, Robert. The mathematical palette. Florence, KY: Cengage Learning, 2004.
