Analysis Of Sunset At Montmajour By Vincent Van Gogh

“The gentle green hills which on either hand enclosed the village, tufted here and there with magnificent trees, the village itself, straggling and wide, each cottage being far apart from its neighbors and each ornamented with flower beds and shrubberies; these with a lovely stream which would through the valley, formed, as far as my memory may be trusted, one of the most exquisite panoramas, on which it has ever been my good fortune to

“For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection on her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened - then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.”

During Vincent’s time at the Saint-Rémy sanatorium, he painted one of his renowned landscape paintings, Starry Night in 1889. The choice of medium used was oil paint where Vincent famously displayed his impasto technique on the hemp material canvas. He wrote to his brother about his inspiration stating, “This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big” . Hence, you can infer that Starry Night was painted from the view of Vincent’s room where the background of the composition depicts the night scenery of a small and peaceful village, which juxtaposes the movements of the brightly lit sky. However, Vincent did not exactly follow what he saw from his window but painted from what he saw in his imagination, following the likes of Gauguin.

One of the most influential painters of the twentieth century was Paul Cezanne. He was willing to break the traditionally accepted artistic practice in order to better portray his artistic creativity. Cezanne was became part of the movement that followed the Impressionists called the Post-Impressionism movement. The artists who were the driving forces behind this movement were Gauguin, Van Gogh, Seurat, and Cezanne. These artists were placed in this grouping because they were the avant-garde artists of the time period, who wanted to be able to express their emotions rather than simply representing what they saw. Cezanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire seen from The Bibemus Quarry was painted in 1985. Mont Sainte-Victoire is a mountain that is in the South of France and overlooks the Aix-en-Provence, which happens to be the hometown of Paul Cezanne. This work exemplifies the Post-Impressionistic techniques because Cezanne utilized the avant-garde techniques, while at the same time demonstrating the relationship between the artist and the work.

Texture and pattern are very easy to identify in this painting. The street’s cobblestones show texture and pattern in the way that they are arranged. Texture is also demonstrated through the paint strokes on the buildings, the tree, and even the sky. These thick, uneven strokes add a layer of depth and texture to all elements of the painting.

Select a non-discursive artifact such as a painting, a musical composition, a building, or a piece of furniture. Do the five canons of rhetoric—invention, organization, style, memory, and delivery—apply? If they do, explain how you see them manifest in the artifact.

Vincent Van Gogh is one of the most infamous and influential artists of all time. When I saw that Van Gogh’s painting “Olive Trees With Yellow Sky and Sun” was on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, I knew I had to choose it for this paper. Before doing the research for this assignment, I didn’t know much about Vincent Van Gogh, but the fact that pretty much everyone knows his name and recognizes him as a huge part of art history, it made me naturally really curious about him.

Antoine Watteau’s La Perspective (View through the Trees in the Park of Pierre Crozat) uses many elements of the Rococo style of painting to instill a sense of intimacy. In this painting, members of the elite society gather unceremoniously in a wooded clearing. The people make casual exchanges as they mingle in the park. Trees and foliage dominate a majority of the painting. A small white building can be seen in the background through a clearing in the trees. Watteau uses color, composition, setting, and pose in the painting to create intimacy.

When I first saw Vincent van Gogh’s painting of The Starry Night, I was immediately drawn to the peaceful luminescent stars emanating outward like vibrant yellow halos into the captivating striking blue sky. I felt a sense of calm and tranquility as the bright orange moon shone intently over the serene village below. The sprawling mountain range, grassy hills and fields of wheat intensified this feeling as a soft wind swept through the countryside. Under the immense stars and vibrant night sky, the people of the village sleep soundly in their cottages. This painting exudes an overwhelming feeling of calmness and peace in my mind.

The artist used an array of colors in the painting to portray his idea. He used different values of colors to show the objects that are getting direct sunlight and those that are shaded. The trees that are in the sunlight have a lighter value of brown on their trunks and a lighter value of green on their leaves, while the trees that are in the shade have darker brown trunks and darker green leaves. The dirt road is a tan color with spots of darker brown to show where the shade lies from the trees. You can tell that the horses and wagons are in the sun because they have a lighter value of color and the artist used a darker

The painting depicts a singular mountain with trees and abstract landmasses in the foreground. The trees are placed in such a way that they seem to echo the shape of the mountain. This is an example of Cézanne’s attempt to created a structured composition out of the scenes that he observes in nature. Cézanne was not depicting nature as it was, but rather he was, as he called it, making “a construction after nature” (Stokstad,1013). This is one idea that lead Cézanne away from the impressionists, who were more concerned with reproducing on canvas exactly what their eyes perceived. Another thing that was different between Cézanne’s style and the impressionists’ was the way that he applied paint to the canvas. For example, in this painting, the trees and land in the foreground are loosely painted in; their forms are created by an amalgamation of colored blotches. The blotches of color often bleed into each other, and the forms that they represent begin to dissolve. The image is flattened by the ambiguous forms in several spot in this painting, creating a disruption in the illusionistic space and bring the viewer’s focus on the inherently flat surface of the painting. The most effective technique that Cézanne employs in his attempt at depicting space in this painting is atmospheric perspective. Coloring the mountain with the same shades of blue

Beside the pile of straw which has a wheel leaning against it, a farmer is stooping to collect timbers. Before a thatched cottage in the middle of the painting, several farmers carrying farm tools and riding horses silhouetted in the shadows. They form in groups as if they were discussing some deliberate issues. On the other pile which sits in the other side of the sandy road, a slightly stout farmer with a straw hat is sitting on straws to have a rest. Beside him, an older villager leaning on his stick and a comparatively shorter man who is carrying a basket are talking to him as if they were pleading him for some reason. The trees extend along the sandy road in a diagonal line, creating a spatial demarcation. In the far end of the road, there is a vague tall building with pinnacle roof. The sky above, which takes up nearly half of the painting, is pale and dusty, suggesting the end of the day in a hot arid climate.

The texture of the canvas works very well with the subject matter portrayed in the painting. The grassy hill side and the leaves of the trees are especially complimented by the canvas. It makes the leaves feel like they are slightly moving, this combined with the lack of detail itself the leaves. This is contrasted nicely with the very detailed renderings of the trunks and branches of the trees, the

The use of lines in Stone City is one of the key visual elements in this painting. The artist used many contour lines to define the boundaries between the trees and the valley, the river and the land, and even the long roads from the hills as it winds through the countryside. Wood also incorporated a lot of implied lines into his artwork. The trees and bushes that line the hills create a line of sight which draws the eye of the viewer to the house on the river, which is the focal point of this painting. The lines all move in different directions and help the artist highlight different aspects of the painting. Around the city and in the foreground of the painting the artist uses a lot of horizontal lines, which gives the town a calm sensation. As we move away from the city, we find a lot of vertical lines which denote growth. We also find a lot of diagonal lines which imply action in the painting. The diagonal lines are predominantly used by the artist in the creation of the roads and

• The focal point of the painting is the sun-drenched valley and river. The emphasis comes from the diagonal of the tree to the left that directs the view of the scene down the valley toward the farmland.