Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 - 29 July 1890) - postimpressionist, originally Dutch. His creative legacy had a huge impact primarily on French painting.
. In 1878 he settled in the mining region and for the first time faced with glaring poverty. Feeling powerlessness to change their sermons, Van Gogh, after all, afflicted his money, property and clothing, and decides to study art. For this he moved to The Hague.
The first paintings of Van Gogh belong to the so-called "Dutch period", covering 1881-1886 years. Van Gogh ordinary depicted laborers in all their ugliness of their daily life and hard work. The greatest achievement of this period was the painting "The Potato Eaters" which affects by the deliberate rough of images: dim light falls from the shadows sinewy hands of peasants, thin ugly faces, poor housing items.
Quite a different understanding of the expressive possibilities of color came to Van Gogh in the "French period" that occurred in his work when he moved to France. Two years in Paris (1886-1888) drastically changed his painting. Familiarity with the Impressionists, such as Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cezanne and other famous painters was for Van Gogh as a school of excellence.
Meanwhile, Van Gogh developed a dangerous mental illness. He asked his friend Gauguin to come to him in Arles. Here, actually, was created one of his most famous paintings - "Sunflowers."
Van Gogh often painted flowers: branch of flowering apple trees, chestnut trees, acacia trees, almond trees, roses, oleanders, irises, zinnias, anemones, hollyhocks, carnations, daisies, poppies, cornflowers, thistle. The flower represented to the artist as ‘the idea, symbolizing gratitude and appreciation’.
But sunflowers had to master a special significance. Flattened, losing elasticity petals resembled ruffled fur or languages of dying flame, black core - the huge mournful eyes, stems - frantically bent arms. From these flowers sorrow was wafted, but there still was dormant life force that resisted to fading.
He wrote two paintings cycle with them: Paris (1887, two pictures with lying flowers) and Arles (1888, four works with flowers in the decanter). Then the painter made several versions of these works. All of them are still causing debate in the art circles and became a kind of "brand." The "Sunflowers" for Van Gogh have the same meaning as the "Mona Lisa" for Leonardo, as the "Sistine Madonna" foe Raphael, as the "Black Square" for Malevich. These paintings are in a certain sense, synonymous with their artists.
Arles cycle, which includes the London painting was intended to decorate the room of the artist’s friend, Paul Gauguin, in the so-called Yellow House in Arles, in southern France, which Van Gogh rented. Both artists worked together there from October - December 1888.
Six months later, in January 1889, Van Gogh has also written sunflowers: a lighter variation of "Munich" paintings and two variations of "London".
Between the August and the January paintings was the abyss: heavy quarrel with Gauguin, an attack of madness, hospital, loneliness, lack of money. Vincent, who survived the collapse of all the hopes, as if looking back on the brief time of happiness, but without former enthusiasm.
The artist couldn’t pay the rent, and he would have to leave the "yellow house", which he wanted to decorate with his "Sunflowers". His great idea - a series of panels with sunflowers - did not materialize until the end, but its best part, "London" still-life, belong to the most well known and loved by the public creations of Van Gogh.
The Painting, depicting sunflowers, was painted by Van Gogh in August 1888. The picture shows the 14 flowers. The format of canvas is 73/93 cm, which is unusual, and differs from the official norms, which provides for a landscape the size of 92/65 cm. As I have already mentioned, this painting Van Gogh hung in the room, which was prepared for Gauguin. Now the picture is located in London.
The plot of these pictures is extremely simple: flowers in ceramic vase - and nothing else. The surface on which we can see the bouquet is not worked out, it invoice is not expressed. We don’t know what it is: a table, a shelf or windowsill, wood or cloth tablecloth - it does not matter.
The same can be said about the background: this is not the drapery, not a wall, not an air environment, but just kind of a shaded plane. The ambience of vase is not emphasized, only flowers freely live in three-dimensional space - some petals vigorously pulled forward toward the viewer, others rush into the depths of the canvas.
Gruff peasant vase seems disproportionately small and tight compared to the huge flowers. Not only vase is not suitable for the sunflowers - the entire canvas is cramped. The inflorescences and leaves rest on the edge of the picture, with displeasure recoil from the frame. Van Gogh put very thick strokes (technique "impasto"), squeezing them directly from the tube onto the canvas. The essence of this technique is that the paint is applied very thickly, and applied not only by traditional brushes, but also by a knife. Thus was created a special rough surface and relief pattern. The traces of brush touch and knife-palette knife are clearly visible on the canvas; rough embossed texture of paintings appears as the cast of violent feelings, owned by the artist at the moment of creation. Written by vigorous vibrating strokes, sunflowers seem alive: heavy, full of inner strength blossoms and flexible stems move, pulsate and change before our eyes - grow, swell, mature, wither.
Sometimes, Vincent van Gogh painted his famous colored curls, spreading a thick layer overlaid on the canvas with his own finger. He also liked to put on a thick canvas, do not diluting the paint with a brush or palette knife. Whatever he wrote - verdant grass or the sunflowers, the paint applied in an unusual way became one of the most memorable parts of the picture. The artist used a thick paint in order to breathe life into the subjects written by him.
In the "Sunflowers" there are very few mixed colors. The paints are pristine as if squeezed directly from the tube and imposed by the long strokes of the brush.
Van Gogh revealed here exclusively with the help of color. This is not the artist who in the Paris period applies another technique (short and expressive brush strokes "Self-portrait in gray hat"). This is not even the Van Gogh in the beginning of the Arles period when he tried to display a view of the water surface near the Langlois Bridge. The "Sunflowers" bouquet of blooming and fading flowers is obtained directly by means of movement and colors, accentuated by small fragments of green and blue. The convexity of the vase is achieved by a rough brown line under it - the artist's signature.
For Van Gogh the differences between animate and inanimate matter actually didn’t exist. Van Gogh said, that he saw in the whole nature, for example, in the trees, its expression and so to speak, its soul. The "soul" of the sunflower was enormously close to the artist. The flower, which lives in harmony with cosmic rhythms, turning its corolla to follow the sun, was for him the embodiment of the relationship of all things - the small and the great, the earth and the cosmos.
And the sunflower itself appears as a heavenly body in a halo of gold-petal rays. The still life with sunflowers is shining by all shades of yellow - the colors of the sun. Let us remember that the artist saw this series as a symphony of colors, because he usually mentioned the importance of color, when sharing the details of design with his brother and friends. In one letter he said that in the "Sunflower" the yellow should be flamed on the changing background - blue, pale malachite green, bright blue; in another letter he mentioned that he would like to achieve something like a stained glass effect in a Gothic church.
The message is clear: to achieve shine, sunny glow yellow. Van Gogh with an extraordinary acuteness felt color. Every shade of paint was for him fraught with a whole set of concepts and images, feelings and thoughts, and the stroke on the canvas was equivalent to the spoken word. Favorite artist yellow embodied joy, kindness, benevolence, energy, fertility of the land and the life-giving warmth of the sun. That is why moving to the south pleased Van Gogh, into the realm of a generous sun, in the bright "yellow house".
The artist himself wrote that the high yellow note accepted him in that summer. Paintings, written in Arles, were flood by all shades of yellow: Van Gogh depicted himself in a bright yellow straw hat, he often chose a yellow background for his portraits, wrote golden sun meadows, fields with ripe bread, stack, straw bundles, ocher-yellow trunks, evening city lights, painted sunset sky, sun disk, huge, shrouded in a luminous haze of stars. Even a simple wooden chair in the artist's studio shined with the yellow festive!
The sunflowers shine brighter than the Sun, like they have absorbed the hot rays of light and emitting it into the space. The artist sought to create something peaceful and comforting in the last years of his short life suffering. But are there only joy and comfort in his later paintings? The frantic glow paints, the more electrified become strained paintings. As in a complex chord, a jubilant cry of despair and a cry fused in it together.
Van Gogh decided to show and validate the new revolutionary movement in the painting: the colors do not fade, they bloom! According to Axel Rudger, director of the museum in Amsterdam, the artist didn’t fall into a trance mad while drawing, but on the contrary, worked very carefully and thoughtfully.
Vincent Van Gogh. has long studied color theory, worked methodically. This is very different from the common understanding of him as a painter, which randomly put strokes on the canvas.
Vincent Van Gogh wrote himself: "I have never had such a wonderful opportunity to work. The nature in Arles is incredibly beautiful! Everywhere, above all marvelous blue sky and the sun rippled shine bright greenish-yellow color; it is gently and beautifully, as a combination of sky-blue and yellow in the paintings of Vermeer of Delft. I cannot write as beautiful, but I'm captures so much that I will give myself freedom, not thinking about any rules "
The same creative power that brings to the world the update, causing lights to rotate, and the plants to mature, it becomes a source of destruction and decay. Under the sun every living thing is growing and maturing, but after ripening naturally and inevitably comes wilting. These simple truths were taken by the whole being of the artist. Because about the film "The Reaper," he wrote, that the humanity is an ear, which is to be compressed. But in this death nothing is sad, it comes with the full light of the sun that illuminates all with the golden light.
Van Gogh deeply felt eternal mutability of the universe. The feeling of unity of interrelated opposites - light and darkness, prosperity and decay, life and death - it was not an abstract philosophical category, but strong, painful and almost unbearable experience for him. Therefore, as noted by the author of the remarkable book "Van Gogh. The Life" Steven Naifeh, a mature artist's works are marked by "a rare fusion of drama and festivity, it is permeated with a pained ecstasy before the beauty of the world."
The "Sunflowers" by Van Gogh is a symbol of our beautiful and tragic life, its formula, its quintessence. This blossoming and withering flowers; this young, mature and aging beings; this emerging, growing cold and hot blazing star; this, in the end, the image of the universe in its relentless cycle.
What is more, there are a lot of interesting stories, connected with this picture. During the war, the painting "Sunflowers", which is exhibited in the National Gallery (in fact, the picture belongs to the Tate Gallery), in case of security was sent to the county of Cumbria in the North West of England - to Muncaster Castle, built on the foundations of an ancient Roman fort in the town Ravenglass. From there, the picture was taken to Scotland - to Trossachs, so that it was looked by a German restorer, who fled from the Nazi Germany.
In his country house in the North Glasgow the restorer took down a bleak picture of Rembrandt, and on this place was hung a picture of the cheerful sunflowers.
Near this picture was hanging " Yellow Chair "by Van Gogh, a great painting of the late Turner and " Waterloo Bridge " of Whistler - a good collection, which brightened up the years of war in a foreign land!" - he wrote. In wartime, he was deprived of the right tools to for the restoration of the canvas " Sunflowers", that is why he used a cheese grater to apply the wax on the back of the canvas and the conventional iron - to fix the wax and a dental polishing tools - to more evenly distribute the paint on the canvas.
"For modern restorers such actions would be horrified - Bailey says - and, nevertheless, since there was little need to restore the picture again."
In conclusion, I want to say that there are works of art, which drift through the galleries of the world and become almost synonymous with the name and method of painting of the artist.
The painting "Sunflowers" by Vincent van Gogh is a perfect example. The important is not only the relationship of the artist and the painting, but the artist's relationship and the impact of this painting on the development of the art as a whole. The "Sunflowers" by Vincent Van Gogh was repeatedly copied and duplicated by different artists (although no one could achieve vitality and intensity of color, like Van Gogh) and depicted everywhere from the household items to art exhibitions.
The rapid development is typical for the paintings, filled with swirling splashes of bright colors and the image of people and nature, is the essence of very famous works of Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh's art can be interpreted in different ways. His paintings have become a source of inspiration for other artists. Still life - vase with fourteen sunflowers - was created in Arles, France during August 1888 and now it is in the National Gallery in London, England.
In this picture depicted the illusion of light in order to emphasize the structure and outline of the subject. The object contour is enhanced by a line separating the object and the wall. In the picture there are yellow, green and some touches of blue, and they do not conflict with each other. These colors are mixed with each other, creating an indescribable hurricane of emotions. Bright yellow sunflowers release their energy. Soft blue-green background nicely add power to yellow.
The "Sunflowers" by Van Gogh changed the perspective of human art and life. These paintings captivate the mind and affect by its simplistic beauty. The smooth transitions and explosions of beautiful yellow, riveting the attention of eyes without disturbing the balance of parts. Seeing this picture, you will not forget it during all your life. It will inspire you by its energy and brightness.
Bibliography
Briony Fer, ‘Introduction’ in Modernity and Modernism: French Painting in the Nineteenth Century, Fer et al. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993) 3-49.
Francis Frascina, Tamar Garb, Nigel Blake, and Briony Fer, Charles Harrison, Modernity and Modernism: French Painting in the Nineteenth Century (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993).
Michael Fried, ‘Art and Objecthood,’ in Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1998) 148-172.
Steven Naifeh, Van Gogh: The Life (London: Bloomsbury, 1988)165-184.
The National Gallery, London, http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/vincent-van-gogh-sunflowers (accessed: 06 February 2016).
Vincent van Gogh, The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh (Paris: Glénat, 1938) 89-97.
Painting
Van Gogh. Sun Flowers. 1888The National Gallery, London. Canvas. 73” x 93”. (Source: The National Gallery)
