User:Vanilledolli2l/Sample page

Welcome to Wikipedia! This page is a sandbox, an area where you can experiment and test edits. It contains simple examples of various elements you'll find around Wikipedia. It may be deleted after a period of inactivity; please do not use it to draft an article or create anything else you wish to last.



= Vincent Van Gogh's Paintings and Life = Many regard Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), perhaps the world's most famous artist, as the'mad' artist, the man who painted in a frenzy, or simply the tormented soul who cut off his ear. Those who see his paintings as mere visual manifestations of his troubled mind frequently overshadow his artistic genius. While this is partially correct, his innovative and unique artistic style was enormously influential on a slew of artists who followed in his footsteps. Even when openly influenced by his predecessors or contemporaries, his art remained distinctly his own, developing a distinct style that was rejected by the art-buying public in his own time. Vincent van Gogh's career as a painter was brief, but his works revolutionized artistic practice and styles. The intensity of his vision, his wonderful sense of color, and the extraordinary boldness of his technique resulted in masterpieces that had a profound impact on twentieth-century art.

Early Years 1881-1883
Although the artist's first formal job after graduating from high school was in the arts, he did not begin painting seriously until years later. Vincent van Gogh began his apprenticeship at the age of 16 at his uncle's branch of Goupil & Cie, a Paris-based art dealer. The job required travel and certainly exposure to contemporary art of the time, but van Gogh would move on to religious work and a brief stint as a bookseller before creating his first Van Gogh painting. His early works, completed between 1881 and 1883, demonstrate a novice's attention to detail as well as hints of the nascent genius that would fully emerge in his later paintings. Although his sketches and watercolor drawings appear two-dimensional and amateurish at first glance, they are fascinating as testaments to van Gogh's early studies in Realism.

Vincent van Gogh created his first drawings while staying at his parents' home in Etten, the Netherlands, and was primarily influenced by anatomy, perspective, and artistic technique books. The artist limited his first drawings to a black and white palette, believing that mastery of this discipline was required before attempting color works. His first drawings of people show various peasants in static poses, some in profile, whereas his first landscapes are primarily studies in perspective. Vincent used shadow and light rather than color to create dimension in his early pen and watercolor drawings. The artist's focus on the human figure was critical to his artistic development, drawing on the weighty influences of masters such as Millet, Rembrandt, and Daumier.

Midway through 1881, Vincent van Gogh engaged in a brief period of study with Anton Mauve, a master in The Hague School of art. Mauve not only covered the basics but also introduced his pupil to watercolors and oils, thus broadening the artist's scope of expression. Vincent's Still Life With Cabbage and Clogs, one of his first paintings, makes use of the somber earth tones that characterize his early works in the Dutch style. It also features a rich splash of color, a harbinger of the brilliant Van Gogh painting style to come.

One of the Vincent van Gogh's early forays into landscape, a genre that would hold his focus throughout his career, View of the Sea at Scheveningen completed in August 1882, depicts an active view of the strand near The Hague. The realism of the scene is actually in evidence on the canvas itself, with grains of sand from the stormy weather still embedded in the oils. The work exhibits elements of the Impressionist school of art with its indistinct yet mobile figures in the foreground, choppy brush strokes indicating roiling surf and the dark shapes, suggestive of storm clouds, overhead.

The Hague
Vincent van Gogh's stay in The Hague in 1882 and 1883 proved to be a fruitful period in which he honed his technique and explored similar yet novel subject matter. During this time, he received his first commissions from an uncle who was also an art dealer for several drawings of cityscapes in The Hague.

Van Gogh landscape painting of 1883 Bulb Fields testifies to the artist's awakening to the expressive use of light and color so prominent in his later work. Hyacinths in white, blue, pink, and golden hues fill garden boxes in the foreground of the painting, leading the eye to a distant hillside and a sky filled with white clouds. A gardener walks between boxes in the middle distance, framed by shadowed, thatch-roofed houses.

The Middle Years: 1884-1887
A failed love affair, his father's death, and a brief period of study at the Antwerp Academy formed a bleak backdrop for Vincent van Gogh's ongoing artistic development during this period of his life. During a stay in the northern village of Nuenen from late 1883 to 1885, the painter concentrated on agrarian scenes depicting peasants working the soil and weavers at work. The Potato Eaters, widely regarded as the artist's first masterpiece, was completed in 1885. Vincent van Gogh invokes Rembrandt's influence in this depiction of a farm family seated around their humble table by virtue of the shadowy setting that is nonetheless filled with personality and life. A heaping plate of potatoes exemplifies the simple wealth of those who live off the land. The warm glow of a single lamp illuminates the companionable atmosphere, inspiring the viewer to join in on this lowly yet companionable scene.

Impressions of Paris
Vincent van Gogh attended art classes at the Antwerp Academy in 1886, but only for a portion of the year. After relocating to Paris with his brother, Theo, Vincent studied with artist Cormon and met fellow students Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, John Russell, and Emile Bernard. Theo, an art dealer, introduced his brother to the works of famous Impressionist painters such as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Georges Seurat, all of whom had a significant influence on the artist's future paintings. During this time, Vincent met and befriended the artist Paul Gauguin, whose brilliantly colored paintings influenced the Dutchman's art.

Vincent van Gogh experimented with the pointillist technique advocated by Seurat in works such as A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte in 1887. Vincent uses tiny points of light-reflecting color to reveal a sharp-featured man with the world-weary expression of someone who has seen more than his fair share of adversity in one of his many self-portraits: Self Portrait with Grey Felt Hat. It was during this time of his life that Vincent van Gogh began developing an interest in Ukiyo-e, Japanese woodcut prints, which he and such contemporaries as Claude Monet and Edgar Degas began to collect, and which would inspire paintings reflecting the Japonaiserie influence on his artistic vision. Van Gogh's 1887 interpretation of The Courtesan, a work by Keisai Eisen, features an infusion of brilliant colors that far outshine the original. He chose a background of a lily pond in place of Eisen's cherry blossoms.

Latter Years: 1888 to 1890
In 1888, Vincent van Gogh relocated from Theo's Paris home to Arles, southern France, where he rented The Yellow House. In the spring, he painted Provence's blossoming landscapes as well as seascapes in nearby Saintes-Marie-de-la-Mer. During this productive period in the artist's life, he also completed a number of portraits, including his Roulin family series.

Vincent van Gogh was working on his second series of Sunflowers paintings while preparing a room in his Yellow House for Gauguin, who planned to visit Arles for an extended stay later in the year. He wrote the first series while visiting his brother in Paris. Sunflower paintings by the artist featured a variety of backgrounds and arrangements of the large, golden flowers, each one similar but distinct. These works are particularly admired by art experts for their innovative use of the yellow color spectrum. Others appreciate the paintings for their unique blend of simplicity and richly evocative detail.

Gauguin's Visit
Although much anticipated by Vincent van Gogh, Gauguin's arrival at the Yellow House in October 1888 did not go as planned. Both artists were having a productive period in their careers at the time, but disagreements and arguments tainted the productive tenor of their visit. Tensions between the two peaked in late December, when Vincent allegedly attacked his colleague with a razor and, instead of engaging, cut off a portion of his own ear. Vincent van Gogh spent the next few days in a hospital in Arles. Subsequently, the artist entered care at the asylum at Saint-Remy-de-Provence, and although struggling with rapid mental deterioration, he produced a series of stylistically diverse paintings that depicted the hospital itself and well as the surrounding grounds, olive trees and cypresses.

Vincent van Gogh painted his brilliant 1889 work, Irises, in the garden at Saint-Remy during his stay. The painting, which exhibits some characteristics of Japanese woodcuts as well as the artist's penchant for color and light, was part in the annual Societe des Artistes Independant exhibit in Paris, thanks to Theo's intervention, along with the Van Gogh painting, Starry Night Over the Rhone. The prestigious exhibit introduced the artist's genius to a wider audience than ever before.

Final Days and Death
Despite his illness taking an increasing toll on his daily activities, Vincent van Gogh's final months were his most productive. During his final 60 days on Earth, he entered a period of extreme fruitfulness amid gradually increasing recognition for his work. Wheatfield with Crows is thought to be Vincent van Gogh's final work.

As he neared the end of his life, Vincent van Gogh gravitated toward the green and blue color palette found in Thatched Cottages at Cordeville. He also liked curved, undulating lines to represent movement and energy, such as the fence line in the foreground and the treetops behind him. The distortion of familiar shapes, such as the cottages themselves, takes the artwork beyond Impressionism toward new iterations of expression. As he approached his death at the age of 37, Vincent van Gogh was establishing an entirely new Post-Impressionistic style.

On 27 July 1890, Vincent van Gogh was shot in the stomach, and passed away in the early morning of 29 July 1890 in his room at the Auberge Ravoux in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise in northern France. Although official history maintains that Van Gogh committed suicide, the latest research reveals that Van Gogh's death might be caused by an accident.

Influence of Vincent van Gogh
Today Vincent van Gogh is generally regarded as the greatest Dutch painter since Rembrandt Even though he garnered only a very limited following during his lifetime, Van Gogh's artistic style had a considerable impact on scores of artists who followed. His works heralded the development of the Fauvism, Expressionism and Modernism schools of the 20th century. In the decade following van Gogh's death, his former colleagues, including Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as well as contemporaries such as Edvard Munch and Gustav Klimt continued to innovate, incorporating influences from the now-mainstream school of Impressionism as well as Van Gogh's brand of Post-Expressionism into new artistic styles.

Vincent van Gogh did not live to see his talent recognized. Nor could he possibly ever have dream that he would be an enduring source of inspiration for subsequent generations of artists. The career of Vincent van Gogh as a painter was short, but his paintings revolutionized artistic practice and styles. The intensity of his vision, his wonderful sense of color and the extraordinary boldness of his technique created masterpieces that exercised a profound influence on the art of the twentieth century.

Example external link