[HN Gopher] Vincent van Gogh's paintings and drawings
___________________________________________________________________
Vincent van Gogh's paintings and drawings
Author : CoBE10
Score : 194 points
Date : 2023-06-28 10:42 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vangoghmuseum.nl)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vangoghmuseum.nl)
| talkingtab wrote:
| 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. 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.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I don't paint, but I do take pictures. And looking at how
| painters throughout history depicted the world had an impact on
| my photography. Especially Van Gogh, as it was the first
| painter, and museum, I visited by actively trying to learn
| something instead of just admiring, or not, works of art.
|
| After all, the use of light and composition are almost
| universial concepts.
| turtledragonfly wrote:
| I like this collection because of how _much_ there is to see. Van
| Gogh was more prolific than I had somehow imagined.
|
| There are different kinds of artists, and one kind (that I
| identify with) does it because of some semi-compulsion. It's not
| "oh, I think I'll do some art today, wouldn't that be nice?" but
| rather "I _need_ to make something; I will not feel right until I
| do. Where's my paint?" These are the ones who would keep
| producing even if nobody ever saw their work.
|
| I guess that jives with my understanding of Van Gogh's history.
| Not a commercial success, not sought-after. But he did it anyway.
| toyg wrote:
| Bit of both here. Definitely Van Gogh painted largely because
| he wanted to, but at the same time, the people helping him were
| constantly reminding him of the commercial necessities of the
| art, pushing him to produce more in this or that fashionable
| style.
| roeles wrote:
| I can recommend https://vangoghexpo.com/ for those who love van
| gogh.
| mav88 wrote:
| 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.
| deeg wrote:
| Also, his paintings are so _thick_. Photos don 't allow you to
| see how the paint was applied on top of other paint. Seeing
| them in person allowed me to understand that Van Gogh attacked
| his canvas.
| swayvil wrote:
| Destitute outcast dressed in rags. But he could afford to
| slather his canvases deep with that pricey oil paint. And
| don't get me started on storage space. Those paintings take
| up room.
|
| Maybe he had a trustfund. Maybe he spent 99% on art supplies
| and 1% on potatoes. I dunno.
| Saturn5 wrote:
| He was not rich, he mostly painted farmers and peasants and
| never sold anything.
|
| His family, especially his brother Theo, was well off and
| they sent him an allowance to survive as well as art
| supplies. (I would not be surprised that they were afraid
| that, if they send more money he'd spent it on alchool
| instead of supplies)
|
| As for space, I think he sent most of his paintings to his
| brother in exchange for the allowance.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > Maybe he had a trustfund. Maybe he spent 99% on art
| supplies and 1% on potatoes. I dunno.
|
| Then maybe read a biography?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| "When art critics get together, they discuss color, form,
| and composition. When artists get together, they discuss
| where to get a good price on paint." - paraphrasing Picasso
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Actually he had a brother and other relatives who sponsored
| him. They knew he had some kind of mental illness and
| basically kept him at a distance. They loved him, but he
| was a handful.
| pcurve wrote:
| What's wild is some of his painting appear to be thick
| without using a ton of paint. It's amazing to think that most
| of his work was done in a span of couple years.
| jb1991 wrote:
| You can still go right up to them and look at them very close.
| agnos wrote:
| That museum is great. Spending a day there gave me a deep
| appreciation for Van Gogh, maybe even art in general. Pictures
| online definitely don't do it justice. The museum also has a
| good guided audio tour that narrates Van Gogh's life story as
| you go through the collection.
|
| The mesmerizing colors and poignant landscapes, the neurotic
| physicality of the brush strokes, all told through Van Gogh's
| letters to his brother -- it was a vivid experience. I
| understood that Van Gogh saw the world in a different way, and
| for a moment I saw it too.
| Shrezzing wrote:
| I went a while ago to the same museum. Jean-Francois Millet's
| work is in the basement there, as he's one of Van Gogh's
| inspirations. Millet's work is all dreary peasants toiling in
| the bleak fields, really grim and depressing stuff, and I would
| probably never look twice at it online.
|
| Then you get to see his work up close. It's outstanding. It's
| jaw-droppingly beautiful and intricate. Some of the pieces
| absolutely overwhelmed me. His paintings are mostly done with a
| line technique, where he'll paint lines over and over again
| until the canvas is complete with a comprehensible picture. I'm
| not sure what it is about screens, but they just don't convey
| the detail properly at all. On his wikipedia page, Millet's
| work appears to me as the bleak flat paintings I'd have ignored
| before I saw his work in person - copies of the exact same
| paintings I'd seen in person, which overwhelmed me.
|
| I don't really understand why, but there's something
| fundamentally different about seeing some art in person.
| bane wrote:
| My wife and I both struggled to really get into his work until
| we went to the museum. There's something about the way the
| museum presented Van Gogh, as a struggling misfit of perhaps
| questionable talent trying to make friends and looking for a
| popular counter-culture style, that really clicked with me. I
| didn't identify with Van Gogh per se, but I suddenly felt for
| him and his humanity and it peeled away those layers of
| nonsensical pop-culture that surrounds him.
|
| 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.
| borbulon wrote:
| I could spend days in front of just one of his real works.
| runamok wrote:
| The texture of his paintings is impossible to reproduce in a
| print. He really slathered it on!
| aksss wrote:
| I've had that same rewarding experience at the museum. I
| figured at least part of it was because you don't fully
| appreciate the depth of the paint itself on the canvas when
| looking at a photo of Van Gogh's work. I was really struck by
| how much dimension there was in the medium, as opposed to a
| typical oil on canvas painting, like say, The Night Watch. It's
| physically a very different thing than a photograph can convey.
| I think you grow up hearing VG is this awesome painter who did
| these awesome works, here they are, and they look cool, but
| personally I never appreciated his work as much as I did after
| seeing the physical objects. The story is more than the
| graphical composition and color, the brush strokes are more two
| dimensional. The gestalt is beyond what a book or poster can
| convey.
| mutagen wrote:
| I didn't have an opinion until I visited the Met and went
| through their impressionist exhibit. One of the centerpieces
| was a self portrait but I was absolutely enthralled by his
| Sunflower.
|
| https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436524?sortB...
| isaacfrond wrote:
| Next time your in the Netherlands, check out the Kroller-Muller
| 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.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| 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.
| NietTim wrote:
| Yep! You can grab a free bike and go for a ride around the
| park surrounding the museum. Highly recommend it
| stevesimmons wrote:
| Kroller-Muller also has a great Mondriaan collection.
| Mondriaan's later coloured geometric paintings really make
| sense when you see his early landscapes with trees, and then
| a period experimenting with thinning out trees focusing on
| the branches and spaces between them.
|
| The museum also has a fun sculpture garden.
|
| [1] https://krollermuller.nl/en/search-the-
| collection/keywords=%...
| [deleted]
| shrx wrote:
| > They look like they were painted yesterday.
|
| Actually, some of the pigments van Gogh used have significantly
| faded or shifted in color over time.
| https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i5/Van-Goghs-Fading-Colors-I...
| hef19898 wrote:
| That museum was definitely one of the highlights! I can only
| second every recommendation for it.
| curiousgal wrote:
| I guess I'm the only one who found the museum to be lackluster.
| cwbrandsma wrote:
| I was there last month...my goodness it was busy. So many
| people. Go early if you can.
| diego_moita wrote:
| > Pictures in a book or on web pages do not do justice to how
| vibrant the pictures are in real life
|
| This is true and big.
|
| The paintings are nice on books and screens but are stunning in
| real life. There is a lot of nuance in the colours that
| pictures don't replicate.
|
| Same happens to Vermeer landscapes. His "View of Delft" is just
| nice on screen but almost magical when seen in real.
| toyg wrote:
| I've just visited the Detroit Institute of Arts (which is
| excellent, by the way; a revelation to this cynical and
| displaced Italian). They have a fairly unknown (at least to
| me) 1873 painting titled _Syria by the Sea_ , by Frederic
| Edwin Church. It's a capriccio, an imaginary landscape mixing
| ruins of various civilization, at sunset. On a screen or a
| page, it's just another bucolic landscape; but its size and
| colors are such that, in real life, it's simply a glorious
| experience.
| boppo1 wrote:
| Did you get to see Cotopaxi? It's in the same room, in the
| center. I have the good fortune of living near the DIA.
| toyg wrote:
| Absolutely, but I had some knowledge about that, so I was
| less surprised by it than by _Syria_. It 's also a more
| angry, sinister painting, with darker tones.
|
| You guys should cherish the DIA, it's a gem.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Van Ostade as well. And Ruisdael too. Those sky paintings are
| just incredible and seeing them reproduced isn't even close
| to the real thing.
| golemotron wrote:
| HN might be the best place to ask. What lights do galleries
| use? They make the paintings pop.
| briandear wrote:
| My house is essentially an art gallery -- I had a museum
| lighting expert do all of the lighting installs and the key
| thing is going to be the width of the light (correctly
| focusing the light so it doesn't spill outside of the
| painting much,) then color temperature.
|
| The focus of the light is key -- by lighting the painting
| and not lighting the walls around it, that makes it pop a
| lot more than typically area lighting common in residential
| applications. Color temperature is also very important.
| Finally, in my case; my walls are painted a dark, lead-pipe
| grey so it makes the paintings really jump.
|
| The brand of my lights is Wac Lighting controlled by Lutron
| dimmers in case you are interested. Color balanced LED. LED
| used to be inferior for galleries, but the tech has gotten
| very good (added benefit of running a lot cooler than the
| old halogen.)
| RamRodification wrote:
| Any recommendations on how to find the correct color
| temperature? Should it maybe be matched with the actual
| painting (how?) or dialed in to fit the rest of the room
| (how)?
| briandear wrote:
| Typically 3600-3800K. My lights are 3600K. A light meter
| for photography can give you color temperature, but it
| will always be printed on the box for your bulbs.
|
| I wouldn't overthink it.. just as long as you stay out of
| the 4500K+ range (approaching daylight,) things will look
| great. The warmth of the 3600K range is great -- anything
| less than that and the warmth of the light starts to
| affect color rendition, anything more and the light gets
| bluer and harsher.
|
| Your eyes can be the guide. But having correctly focused
| light at the correct intensity (not too bright for
| instance) is key. There are use cases for daylight
| balance -- if you are in a mixed light situation such as
| a windowed or skylight with abondant sunlight, you might
| consider going a little cooler on the color temperature
| -- but again, use your eyes.
|
| It can be really fun messing with lighting and art! Good
| luck.
| KANahas wrote:
| Another huge aspect is the CRI/CQS of your light sources.
| CRI (Color Rendering Index) and CQS (Color Quality Scale)
| try to quantify how faithfully colors are represented
| when a subject is lit.
|
| Generally a higher CRI equals a higher quality light
| source. A halogen/incandescent lamp has a perfect score,
| 100. High end LED sources are usually in the range of
| 95-98, but that number can be gamed, which has lead to
| the creation of CQS.
|
| https://blog.1000bulbs.com/home/is-color-quality-scale-
| bette...
| briandear wrote:
| CQS is super important. That was a key tool for selecting
| the LED that we did. Thanks for bringing that up!
| Misdicorl wrote:
| Surely the lighting matters but I think it is only
| secondary. The thing that's missing in reproductions is the
| physical texture of the paintings.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| I'm thinking super high-end 3D printers in 10 years will
| solve this problem.
| Fraterkes wrote:
| Detail-wise 3d printed reproductions have been decent
| enough for a while I think. The trickier part is
| mimicking the texture of complexly layered and blended
| oil-paint with filaments.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| I'm not so certain. Up close, paintings are complex 3D
| sculptures made from a palette of _materials_ , (not
| colors), each with varying levels of translucence,
| different reflective properties, different textures, etc.
| and they can be combined and moved around in infinitely
| complex ways.
|
| Might be possible in a few decades, though.
| [deleted]
| AtNightWeCode wrote:
| I recommend this museum. It did not give me the same jaw-dropping
| experience as staring into Starry Night at MOMA. But it is a
| great museum and it spans over the entire life of Van Gogh, his
| development and tools. There is also a lot humor and distance in
| the descriptions which makes the experience less dark considering
| all the misery in his life.
| amelius wrote:
| Only the visible spectrum, with light coming from one direction
| only? Researchers will probably want more.
| AbortedLaunch wrote:
| Van Gogh Worldwide has a number of photos of paintings done
| with raking light and sometimes even X-ray. The raking light
| really allows one to see the amount of paint applied.
| lukas099 wrote:
| I am intrigued by your comment. Is there a real effort to
| photograph paintings in nonvisible spectrum and fuller set of
| angles?
| yread wrote:
| 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...
| Someone wrote:
| Non-visible spectrum, including x-ray, is common.
|
| It allows one to see what's below the surface (sketches or
| painted-over parts)
|
| Researchers also use all kinds of machinery to figure out how
| paintings were made, what materials were used, etc.
|
| A painting by Rembrandt was put in a synchrotron, for example
| (https://scitechdaily.com/researchers-discover-unusual-
| compou...)
|
| Fuller sets of angles also is fairly normal and must have
| happened for some of van Gogh's paintings, since you can or
| could buy 3D prints of them (https://all3dp.com/3d-printing-
| van-gogh-painting/)
| dekhn wrote:
| Seeing these paintings in person at the museum completely changed
| my appreciation for Van Gogh (I'm more of a rembrandt guy). The
| physical texture of the sunflowers is... its own art form beyond
| painting.
| ciroduran wrote:
| No Starry Night though, I wonder how much the MoMA would allow
| digitalising it
| lode wrote:
| There's a high resolution (30,000 x 23,756 pixels) picture of
| it on Wikipedia [1] - thanks to the Google Art project [2]
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Van_Gogh_-
| _Starry_Night_-...
|
| [2]: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-starry-night-
| vin...
| empiricus wrote:
| Slightly related: I've noticed first in Ghent, then in Amsterdam,
| that at certain moments of the day, the eddies and the waves of
| the water reflections in the channels are quite similar to the
| Van Gogh trademark lines.
| ponyous wrote:
| On one of the paintings[0] you can see electricity poles that
| look fairly modern. I didn't realise that was already the case
| back then!
|
| [0]: https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/d0420V1962
| leobg wrote:
| There was a woman on television in the 1990s who actually met
| Van Gogh back when she was a kid. I was surprised to hear that,
| just as you are surprised to see telephone poles in his
| pictures.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| They look more like telephone poles, and if my google-fu is
| serving me, it's unlikely that large scale power distribution
| was around in Paris in 1887:
|
| https://histoire.bnpparibas/en/the-compagnie-parisienne-de-d...
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| 1887 is in the beginning of France electrification it could
| indeed be electricity poles (mostly haphazard efforts in France
| from 1880 to 1890-ish but it's the entrance of Paris so not an
| unlikely candidate).
|
| Alternatively that could also be part of the telegraphs system
| which was fairly widespread at the time (the painting is of one
| of Paris gates).
| Charlie_26 wrote:
| Cool, now that they're digitised we can cover them in soup
| LesterTheMolest wrote:
| [flagged]
| Freak_NL wrote:
| 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.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| This is how it should be done:
|
| https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.163184.html
|
| Downloadable JPEG in 4096 x 2441 pixels. Public domain licence.
|
| Another example of the Rijksmuseum neighbouring the Van Gogh
| Museum:
|
| https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/rijksstudio/kunstenaars/johann...
|
| Downloadable JPEG in 4226 x 4762 pixels. Public domain licence.
| Only downside is a required account there, but while it asks
| for an e-mail address, it doesn't bother to check it. (So why
| ask? Sounds like a GDPR violation.)
|
| I consider these a _baseline_ for important historical works
| unencumbered by copyright. There is no reason the Van Gogh
| Museum should hoard digital assets. That is not their mission.
| dutchbrit wrote:
| I wouldn't really say pathetic though. It's a step in the right
| direction.
| rcme wrote:
| You can get URLs to the high resolution images using the
| network inspector. E.g.
| https://iiif.micr.io/TZCqF/full/1800,/0/default.webp
| workergnome wrote:
| If you're interested in playing around more with this, it's
| using a standard called IIIF (https://iiif.io) for image
| access via API. It's used by many museums, libraries, and
| archives.
|
| One of the benefits of this is that you can get access to a
| metadata file that lets you know technical information about
| the image: It's at https://iiif.micr.io/TZCqF/info.json.
| lagt_t wrote:
| You need to learn to scrape better:
| https://iiif.micr.io/qDCTO/full/1800,/0/default.jpg
| Freak_NL wrote:
| I shouldn't have to circumvent anything.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| You can push that to 3569x4699 -
| https://iiif.micr.io/qDCTO/full/3569,/0/default.jpg
|
| Then it will complain that 3570x4700 is too large because
| "the maximum is 4000x4000px" which is weird because 3569x4699
| is already bigger than 4000x4000 in both linear and areal
| dimension.
|
| But what they really mean is 16Mi pixels - 16770731
| (3569x4699) < 16777216 (2*24, 4096x4096) < 16779000
| (3570x4700).
| shrx wrote:
| Or use https://dezoomify.ophir.dev/
| tcfhgj wrote:
| Luxury that's worthless if you are chased by heat and thirst
| Dowwie wrote:
| or if the entire solar system is being pulled into a two-
| dimensional black hole
| Jupe wrote:
| Agreed, but the same can be said for any creative output by
| another human, can it not? Watching movies, reading books,
| listening to music... even reading articles and comments on
| Hacker News would be "worthless luxuries" if one is "chased by
| heat and thirst".
| gdubs wrote:
| So, I wasn't really sure about the final season of Ted Lasso
| until the episode "Sunflowers". I won't go in to detail as to
| what the relevance here is in case you haven't seen it, but I
| thought it was just simply beautiful.
| empiricus wrote:
| I was once in the Orsay museum, and realized that the Van Gogh
| paintings are nice enough to put in the kitchen; which
| unfortunately is a bar too high for 99% of existing paintings in
| the world. For some reasons, many painters do not try to make
| beautiful things, or they are incapable.
| bazoom42 wrote:
| Maybe they just wasnt attempting to create decoration for your
| kitchen.
| atkailash wrote:
| [dead]
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| 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
| diego_moita wrote:
| Well, you are right.
|
| When it comes to drawing Van Gogh isn't really "a master". He
| began painting very late in life, didn't have a long
| apprenticeship and his career lasted just 10 years. Also, he
| lived in a cultural context (post-impressionism) that was
| moving away from classical notions of drawing and composition.
|
| Besides, he wasn't the kind of guy that would spend days or
| weeks or months in a painting. Most of his paintings were the
| work of one day or afternoon on the field or beach, he wanted
| that quick burst of expression. That's why he was so prolific.
| Think jazz improvisation, not classical music composition.
|
| The greatness of his work comes from the vibrant use of colour
| and brushwork, not drawing and composition.
| padolsey wrote:
| AFAIK his paintings were never intended to be 'realistic' in
| the sense we may value, but instead: symbolic. He played with
| color, intensity, and perspective, expressing vast emotion, and
| in some cases, turmoil. His mental health and state changed
| throughout his life which you can almost "see" evolving through
| his art as he aged. He's incredible to read about -
| https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/art-and-stories/stories/vinc...
|
| EDIT: I find this really interesting: a visual timeline of how
| his relationship with alcohol changed his artistic style in
| various phases of his life:
| https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/536428/fpsyt-11-0...
| jhallenworld wrote:
| I highly recommend this long video:
|
| "Waldemar On The Life Of Vincent Van Gogh"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=365r2m7_B10
|
| Waldemar is awesome, Van Gogh's life is much more interesting
| than I ever thought.
|
| Also highly recommend all of Waldemar's other "Perspective"
| videos. You will no longer be a noob. These are definitely from
| his perspective- it's all about Mary Magdalene with Waldemar.
| strobe wrote:
| 'perspective' it's just a tool in toolbox of creativity and you
| can play with it whatever you think would be appropriate to
| archive your goals.
| fipar wrote:
| noob here too, but I wanted to share what I found in one of the
| descriptions ("The bedroom", which I chose while skimming
| through the thumbnails after reading your comment):
|
| "The rules of perspective seem not to have been accurately
| applied throughout the painting, but this was a deliberate
| choice. Vincent told Theo in a letter that he had deliberately
| 'flattened' the interior and left out the shadows so that his
| picture would resemble a Japanese print"
| gumby wrote:
| I used to think "painting is obsolete since we have
| photographs".
|
| I later came to realize that paintings can show things
| photographs can't, often much more.
|
| Every time you "say" (express) something you are making
| choices: emphasizing some things and glossing over others.
| Something strange happens to you but when you tell me about it
| you skip the extraneous details and focus on what reinforces
| your point. Taking a photograph, even if not edited (cropped,
| lighting changed, etc), and even if spontaneous or lucky, is as
| much about what is not in the frame as what is. In a good
| movie, we don't have to wait while the character goes to the
| bathroom, or while they drive to the store. We just get the
| part of the story that matters (this is Chekhov's gun).
|
| All that is true of a painting, but like a story you can make
| lots of edits, pulling things literally into the frame that are
| metasyntactic, that a camera would never see.
|
| In a way the sharp literalism of a photo is much too limiting,
| as it tunes your visual system to focus on the image itself
| more than what might be expressed.
| pluijzer wrote:
| And even with just images. Last winter a saw two horses in
| snowy hills. It was a beautiful image. I tried to capture it
| with my camera but couldn't. The hills were too flat, the
| snow didn't have the blue hue from my memory and the horses
| didn't have such a wild manes. Maybe the picture I took was a
| more realistic representation of reality but it did not
| capture what I expirienced. Stiqll think of painting it.
| timacles wrote:
| The goal of art is not to follow rules. That's why you have all
| these books that are the "art and science" of this and this.
| When you follow strict rules you have science, but to make art
| you have to stop following rules.
|
| We're several hundred years past that anyway, with Picasso and
| those random paint splatter paintings.
|
| But to give the science explanation, Van Gogh made
| impressionist paintings, the goal of which is to create and
| ambiance, an atmosphere of an impression the artist felt when
| creating the painting.
|
| Finally, if you study great art you'll see none of them have
| correct perspective. Van gogh just shoved it in your face. But
| having 100% correct perspective is a very amateur quality in
| itself
| jontopielski wrote:
| 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 Gogh. He was a person who wanted
| to disguise his expertise. In one of his letters, he notes to a
| fellow artist that he wants his work to draw people in who
| "swear he has no technique" and be so "savant" that his work
| almost appears naive and does not "reek of its cleverness".
| He's trying to fool us.
| me_me_me wrote:
| Its worth bringing up that his shaky mental state was
| probably very influential on his work.
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| >He was a person who wanted to disguise his expertise
|
| He didn't have expertise. Maybe you are thinking of Picasso?
| bazoom42 wrote:
| It is definietely intentional, since some of the earlier and
| less expressionist drawings use classical perspective.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| 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.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| I did not understand modern art until I saw it in the way
| people from that era would have seen it. I was on Day 7 of a
| vacation in St. Petersburg and we'd gone from gallery to
| gallery for nearly a week, covering art from the 14th century
| onwards.
|
| After about the 10,000th realistic painting with vaguely
| mythological/religious themes, it was simply exhausting. And
| then we entered a room that housed Matisse's 'The
| Conversation' and it took my breath away.
|
| A gigantic, bright blue painting in an old Russian palace
| after a week of gallery hopping...it was absolutely majestic.
| I can only imagine the impact something like that must have
| had on people who had known nothing but the same old
| realistic style.
|
| What throws me about Van Gogh, though, is that unlike
| Matisse, he's not entirely modern or abstract - he's still
| trying to capture some semblance of reality, and he's even
| making an attempt at realistic perspective, but something is
| just off. I admire the style, but I could never come to grips
| with what he's trying to do (or not trying to do) with his
| perspectives.
| larata_media wrote:
| I can't speak on his behalf, but I can speak on my own
| experiences in creating art. It could be something as simple as
| that whatever you create is not always intended to be a great
| work, but rather it starts out as an experiment to teach
| yourself something, or learn a technique, and you work on it so
| much that you enjoy it, and it eventually becomes something.
| Artists aren't really concerned with perfection all the time,
| sometimes we're just discovering something in the craft.
| ocfnash wrote:
| A couple of years ago I read Irving Stone's biography of Van Gogh
| [1] and it very much enriched my experience of Van Gogh's art.
|
| The book is based largely on a collection of letters between
| Vincent and his brother Theo and is quite moving sometimes.
|
| I recommend it!
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lust_for_Life_(novel)
| [deleted]
| nenadg wrote:
| I've been lucky enough to spend some time in Auvers-sur-Oise back
| in 2012 while at the same time jumping to Amsterdam to van Gogh's
| museum. It was an interesting experience.
| bern4444 wrote:
| For those in NYC - The Met has an exhibit on now of Van Goghs
| Cypresses paintings[0]
|
| I highly recommend going if you are in NYC.
|
| This exhibit includes Starry Night (which is on loan from the
| MOMA, also in NY) along with many others. For any moderate to
| major fan of Van Gogh it will not disappoint.
|
| [0]https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/van-gogh-cypresses
| julienchastang wrote:
| I went to a exhibit of van Gogh's lesser known works in Denver
| some years ago. For me, it really humanized him. As I recall, he
| learned his craft partly through a mail correspondence class. On
| display were some of his studies or "homework assignments" which
| I found particularly moving. He was seeking a path to a better
| life just like everyone else.
| smudgy wrote:
| As an aside, Broey Deschanel just released a video discussing the
| van Gogh "Experience"-style exhibitions:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOFBAJStuk8
| garyrob wrote:
| 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 believe I saw a critical post on HN some time ago from
| someone who mentioned having "art students". I'm cynical enough
| to think they may have been middle school students because I
| don't think there are many serious people in the art world today
| who don't love Van Gogh.
|
| And yet, I have a friend who, when the subject of the importance
| of preserving Van Gogh's work came up, said "They've never done
| anything for me!" so he couldn't see a reason why it mattered.
| And, of course, few loved his work while he was alive. Gauguin is
| even said to have even mocked some of Van Gogh's work in his own,
| even though they painted together for a time. (This is mentioned
| at the exhibition at MOMA and a relevant Gauguin is shown.)
|
| So, YMMV. But, I had tears in my eyes from the beauty. Give Van
| Gogh a chance; his work may really come to mean something to you.
| It may not, but if it happens that you have yet to do so, it
| might be worth your while to give it some time, letting yourself
| be in a state of openness to the forms and colors.
| gumby wrote:
| I'm in the "van Gough: meh" camp.
|
| But one thing (of many) that I love about being alive is that
| not everybody has the same tastes, and I enjoyed reading your
| comment.
| lizknope wrote:
| 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 the same experience.
|
| Since then I've seen about 10 other Van Gogh paintings in
| museums and I noticed this similar style in his paintings.
| devilbunny wrote:
| I had the same reaction to "Irises" at the Getty Museum in
| LA.
|
| If a city near you has the Van Gogh Immersive Experience, go
| see it. It's quite impressive. Also, if they're your thing,
| it would be a great thing to see while on psychedelics.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| 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.
| lizknope wrote:
| Thanks, this is really cool to zoom in and rotate about. I
| was doing something similar in the museum moving from side
| to side and squatting down and looking at the painting from
| different angles
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Wow that really does show the texture!
| woolcap wrote:
| What I like about Van Gogh's work, is the 'vibrant energy' in
| his paintings. But I had to experience his work in person to
| come to appreciate and perceive that. Prior to my first in-
| person experience with his paintings, I was in the 'meh'
| camp. It was a similar story for me with the work of Georgia
| O'Keefe.
| bryanmgreen wrote:
| My favorite thing to do when looking at paintings is to stand
| next to it and look at it from a steep side angle.
|
| You can really see the texture and brushstrokes better, which
| as you said, brings a lot of life to the visual.
| Balgair wrote:
| Yes! Getting to see him up close really changed my mind on
| him. Obviously the transmitted colors of a screen aren't the
| reflected colors of light. But even quality print books
| aren't good because of the 3-D data that is missed.
|
| 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.
| senectus1 wrote:
| 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...
| dacohenii wrote:
| I saw it the other day. Its home is MoMA, but it is currently
| on loan at the Met through August 27th.
|
| I just went the other day, and it was definitely worth seeing.
|
| https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/van-gogh-cypresses
| Vinnl wrote:
| If anyone's ever in the Netherlands for more than a couple of
| days, I'd highly recommend checking out the Kroller-Muller
| 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.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I've been to most of the world's great art museums, but I haven't
| been there. (Or the Hermitage, but that's off the table at the
| moment /s) What are some lesser-known museums I need to add to
| the list?
|
| I have one for you: https://folkartmuseum.org/. You can see the
| whole thing in an hour. If you think Van Gogh lacked formal
| training: these people had none whatsoever.
|
| This is really a great thread, HN'ers. Very literate, educated,
| and well-composed.
| yread wrote:
| From the lesser known Frans Hals in Haarlem is very nice and
| much less busy
| Vinnl wrote:
| I (and someone else too) already mentioned the Kroller-Muller
| elsewhere, but if you're in the Netherlands anyway, I'd
| recommend the Mauritshuis as well, and close to it is also the
| Escher museum if you're into that. I assume the Rijksmuseum is
| already crossed off :)
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