Self-portraits - Van Gogh And Rembrandt Essay

One of the last topics we discussed in class turned out to be a form of art that probably interests me more than almost every other type of art that we have discussed this entire semester. That form of art is the impressionist style of painting. I really love all the different brush strokes that form different images for different people. I also enjoy much of the images that the impressionists painted, because they are usually very relaxed and mellow images that put you into a comfortable place. The post-impressionist period, especially very early post-impressionist, is even better I think. I think it’s better because it is just a little more refined and puts more emphasis on the figure and form of different objects. Since I enjoyed the post-impressionist’s

While the painters after the Impressionism period were collectively called the “Post-Impressionists,” the label is quite reductive. Each artist had their own unique style, from Seurat’s pointillism to Signac’s mosaic-like divisionism, Cezanne, Émile Bernard, and others. These artists were all connected in that they were reacting to the aesthetics of Impressionism. Two of the more influential painters from this movement were Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, who aimed to connect with viewers on a deeper level by access Nature’s mystery and meaning beyond its superficial, observable level. However, each artist’s approach to achieving this goal was different. In close examination of Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait (Dedicated to Paul Gauguin) and Paul Gauguin’s Self-Portrait with Portrait of Émile Bernard (Les misérables), one may clearly see the two artists’ contrasting styles on display.

The life span of 37 years saw Vincent Willem van Gogh (Vincent) in creating beautiful works he dearly loved. Painting was an avenue, which allowed him to express his inner thoughts or vent his struggles. My decision to research on Vincent’s painting, Starry Night (1889) came with the inspiration from Don Mclean’s Song, Starry Starry Night where his lyrics spoke about Vincent’s life that further intrigued me in writing this paper.

When I first looked at this painting, I thought to myself, "It's boring. It's boring to look at. Why paint a picture of an empty bedroom?" However, once I started looking at all the elements, my mind changed.

These two self portraits were created over a century apart; this has affected the artistic influences and styles, but also the artists’ intention. Thus, Von Werefkin’s 1908 Self Portrait significantly differs from Le Brun’s 1782 Self Portrait in a Straw Hat. While Le Brun has created the perception that she is demure and docile, Von Werefkin has the opposite effect, creating a perception of fierceness and audacity. This difference is achieved through their gestures, composition and use of colour. There is an obvious delineation between Le Brun’s open, inviting body language, even placement in the composition and soft, pastel colours as opposed to Von Werefkin’s scornful, red eyed gaze, closed off body language and her filling most of the space in the composition and bold, intense colours. Similarly, the artists have both utilized tonal value to create form within the portrait, but their creation of tone has been accomplished by contrasting methods. In order to generate a realistic self portrait, Le Brun applies tints and tones to the subject in foreground giving the illusion she is real due to the three dimensional form. This is a traditional approach to creating form within an artwork, and greatly diverges from Von Werefkin’s more experimental, modernist approach to creating form through tone. In her Self Portrait Von Werefkin has created strong tone by focusing on areas where the light strikes the subject. Instead of adding white to the hue to create tints, she has applied stronger, more vivid colour in areas of light. This is evident as she illustrates the light hitting her face, and the peach hue of her face transitions to a radiant yellow. The warm colours move forward, whilst the cool colours recede; creating a sense of light and ensuring the subject is not

When comparing the lines in the Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night painting and Sol LeWitt’s the Wall Drawing No. 681, the lines are the opposite. In the Starry Night painting the lines of the sky are very curvy and flowing, but the lines of the buildings are very straight. The artist in this painting is showing you a vision he has had during the time he was in the asylum. The lines of the sky are erratic, and it shows how the artist was feeling very unstable during the time he painted the piece. You can feel how peaceful the buildings are, but the sky is not peaceful. The artist is fighting with himself, and it shows in the painting. The Wall Drawing No.681 shows very straight and precise lines.

In the realm of art, the portrait is one of the most intimate and relatable subject matters to the average human. In the past, the main purpose of the portrait was to capture the essence of the person that commissioned the work. The beauty of art is the fact that every artist views the world in a different light, which is reflected and understood when many works of the same subject are compared. No matter how hard one attempts to emulate someone else’s work, their own personal touch will innately shine through the piece. Many artists’ styles are so distinct that the viewer will instantly recognize their work, which is the same idea that great musical artists’ work can be identified within the first few seconds of a song. In order to develop a style that is exclusive to one person, they must first master the basic and essential aspects of the visual arts such as composition and the creation of still life pieces. Getting a solid understanding of the world and the skill of close observation is a step that mustn’t be skipped in the development of a personal style or look. Amedeo Modigliani’s portraits can be identified almost immediately, because of the distinctive features he incorporated into his subjects. His diligence in art school and his general desire to become a better artist were crucial aspects of him eventually finding and solidifying his iconic style.

On a smaller canvas than two other similar paintings, Vincent Van Gogh carefully painted for the third time his bedroom in Arles, a charming town in the south of France, and thus created this approximately 22 ½ x 29’’ artwork. In fact, Van Gogh made three almost identical paintings on the theme of his bedroom and are named « Bedroom in Arles ». The first one, kept at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is painted in October 1888. About a year after, Van

Rembrandt is known as one of the greatest artists of the 17th century. He is also known as one of the greatest painters in western art. Rembrandt earned these titles rightfully so. He belonged to the Baroque period. The Baroque period had works of

Throughout Lyuba Encheva’s text one can understand the evolution of how humans capture the essence of a moment, feeling, occasion, etc… using visual representations. One can gather that the self portrait was considered an artistic form of visual representation that proceeded to represent what is perceived by the person who photographs or paints the portrait and the individual who is represented.

Vincent Van Gogh is one of the most recognized artists in the world. Van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in Groot-Zundert, Netherlands. Van Gogh was born into a family of six children in which his father was a pastor and his mother was an artist. He was named after his stillborn brother who died exactly one year before he was born.

Vincent Van Gogh was formed by his social, cultural and historical context. This is expressed clearly in the underlying stories of both paintings, Starry Night, 1889 and Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889. Both of these paintings portray a narrative relating to Van Gogh significantly as he emotionally connects to the subject in each painting. Van Gogh’s aim of these subjective works was to express meaning through colour and express the painting to a more personal emotion for the viewer. Van Gogh belonged to a small style of Post Impressionism which was a reaction against Impressionism and their formality.

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30th 1853, in Zundert, The Netherlands. Van Gogh spent his teenage year’s working for a firm of art dealers; however, he did not embark upon his art career until 1880. Originally, he worked only with dark and gloomy colors, until he came across the art movements developed in Paris known as, Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism (Meier-Graefe 4). Van Gogh than included their brighter colors and unique style of painting into his very own creations. He produced more than 2,000 works, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches, during the last ten years of his life (Meier-Graefe 10). However, most of his best-known works were produced in his last

Rembrandt van Rijn was born on July 15, 1606 in Leiden, Netherlands. He came from a large family where he was the ninth child. His father was a miller and saw to it that Rembrandt had an excellent education. Rembrandt began attending the University of Leiden, but really wanted to study art. Eventually he left school to become an apprentice to the artist Jacob van Swanenburgh. He also was a student of the painter Pieter Lastman. Company Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch , known as the Night Watch is a Rembrandt painting which dates from 1642. It is a company of the bourgeois militia Musketeers Amsterdam , Frans Banning Cocq controlled , leaving weapons of a building. This painting is in New Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which is

"A picture can paint a thousand words." I found the one picture in my mind that does paint a thousand words and more. It was a couple of weeks ago when I saw this picture in the writing center; the writing center is part of State College. The beautiful colors caught my eye. I was so enchanted by the painting, I lost the group I was with. When I heard about the observation essay, where we have to write about a person or thing in the city that catches your eye. I knew right away that I wanted to write about the painting. I don’t know why, but I felt that the painting was describing the way I felt at that moment.