This week a Dutch journal is publishing the primary complete account of Van Gogh’s admiration for the nation’s nice artists of the seventeenth century: Vermeer, Rubens, Rembrandt, Hals, Van Ruisdael and Van Goyen. The texts (in English) are in Oud Holland: Journal for Artwork of the Low Nations.
Admiration for Vermeer
Van Gogh’s love of Johannes Vermeer is now established, however Elmer Kolfin, an artwork historian on the College of Amsterdam, probes deeper. He works out that Van Gogh would have seen simply three Vermeers: View of Delft (1660-61, Mauritshuis, The Hague), The Lacemaker (1666-68, Louvre, Paris) and Girl in blue studying a Letter (1662-64, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). Nevertheless, Van Gogh knew extra about Vermeer from books and journals.
Kolfin additionally discusses the intriguing suggestion that Van Gogh was influenced by the Delft grasp’s use of blue and yellow. Writing from Arles in September 1888, Vincent commented to his brother Theo: “The dome of the sky is an excellent blue, the solar has a pale sulphur radiance, and it’s tender and charming, like the mix of celestial blues and yellows in work by Vermeer of Delft. I can’t paint as fantastically as that, but it surely absorbs me a lot that I let myself go.”
Van Gogh’s The Yellow Home (September 1888)
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Basis)
Only a week or so later Van Gogh painted one in every of his masterpieces, The Yellow Home (September 1888), depicting his residence (within the centre of the composition) set underneath a strong deep-blue sky.
Impressed by Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens represented an essential inspiration for Van Gogh for a a lot shorter interval, basically the three months that he lived within the previous grasp’s residence metropolis of Antwerp within the winter of 1885-86. As Teio Meedendorp, the senior analysis on the Van Gogh Museum, demonstrates in his Oud Holland essay on Rubens, Van Gogh was impressed by the grasp’s portraits, significantly his use of color within the modelling of faces.
Van Gogh’s Portrait of a Girl (December 1885) and Head of a Girl with a scarlet Bow (December 1885-January 1886)
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Basis) and personal assortment
Whereas in Antwerp, Van Gogh painted three portraits of feminine intercourse staff. Writing to Theo about Head of a Girl with a scarlet Bow (December 1885-January 1886), Vincent commented that he was attempting to seize “a whore’s expression”.
One thing of Rubens’ type of modelling could be seen in Van Gogh’s work, significantly in Portrait of a Girl, with opaque mild yellow and pink areas within the face, and accentuated shadows and crimson accents close to the eyes.
On 14 December 1885, when Vincent began portray the feminine portraits, he wrote to Theo that Rubens “is definitely making a robust impression on me”, significantly “by his manner of drawing the options in a face with strokes of pure crimson”. He singled out the blonde heads in Rubens’ Saint Theresa of Avila via Christ’s intervention rescuing Bernardinus of Mendoza from purgatory (1630-1635), a big altarpiece in what was then known as the Musée Ancien.
Rubens’ Saint Theresa of Avila via Christ’s intervention rescuing Bernardinus of Mendoza from purgatory (1630-35) (element)
Royal Museum of Positive Arts Antwerp
Taking a look at Rembrandt
An essay by Alison McQueen, an artwork historian at McMaster College in Ontario, focusses on Van Gogh and Rembrandt van Rijn. Van Gogh remained an amazing admirer of the previous grasp all through his life.
Each artists finally turned famend for his or her quite a few and highly effective self-portraits. Rembrandt painted simply over 40 and Van Gogh accomplished 35. Van Gogh was impressed by the quantity and high quality of Rembrandt’s self-portraits, however in type and colouration the work of the 2 artists might hardly be extra totally different.
Though Van Gogh most likely solely knew Rembrandt’s painted self-portraits via black-and-white reproductions, he singled out two in his letters: The Prodigal Son within the Inn (Self-portrait with Saskia) (round 1635, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden) and Self-portrait as Zeuxis (1662-63, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne). He knew Rembrandt’s etched self-portraits.
Rembrandt’s The Prodigal Son within the Inn (Self-portrait with Saskia) (round 1635) and Van Gogh’s Self-portrait (September 1889)
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden and Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Vincent praised Rembrandt in September 1889 in a letter to his sister Wil. This was the very second that he was engaged on two of his best self-portraits, achieved simply after his restoration from a psychological disaster on the asylum of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. These work at the moment are on the the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork in Washington, DC.
In his letter, Vincent advised Wil that “I’ve achieved two portraits of myself, one in every of which is kind of in character” (each are high quality works, however he’s extra more likely to be referring to the Musée d’Orsay’s self-portrait with a background of swirling traces). He then goes on to discuss with a self-portrait by his colleague Armand Guillaumin, saying that “it’s one of many uncommon issues that may maintain up alongside even the previous Dutchmen Rembrandt and Hals”.
Different artists featured within the Oud Holland essays are Frans Hals (by Christopher Atkins), Jacob van Ruisdael (by Iris Louwersheimer) and Jan van Goyen (by Dien Bos and Elmer Koflin).
The Adventures with Van Gogh weblog will likely be taking a summer time break in July and August, throughout which period a choice of articles from our archive will likely be up to date and posted on Fridays. Regular posting will resume on 4 September.
Martin Bailey is a number one Van Gogh specialist and particular correspondent for The Artwork Newspaper. He has curated exhibitions on the Barbican Artwork Gallery, Compton Verney/Nationwide Gallery of Scotland and Tate Britain.
Martin Bailey’s current Van Gogh books
Martin has written quite a few bestselling books on Van Gogh’s years in France: The Sunflowers Are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece (Frances Lincoln 2013, UK and US), Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln 2016, UK and US), Starry Evening: Van Gogh on the Asylum (White Lion Publishing 2018, UK and US) and Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln 2021, UK and US). The Sunflowers are Mine (2024, UK and US) and Van Gogh’s Finale (2024, UK and US) are additionally now obtainable in a extra compact paperback format.
His different current books embrace Dwelling with Vincent van Gogh: The Properties & Landscapes that formed the Artist (White Lion Publishing 2019, UK and US), which offers an outline of the artist’s life. The Illustrated Provence Letters of Van Gogh has been reissued (Batsford 2021, UK and US). My Pal Van Gogh/Emile Bernard offers the primary English translation of Bernard’s writings on Van Gogh (David Zwirner Books 2023, UKand US).
To contact Martin Bailey, please electronic mail vangogh@theartnewspaper.com
Please be aware that he doesn’t undertake authentications.
Discover all of Martin’s adventures with Van Gogh right here
