Showing posts with label Vincent Van Gogh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vincent Van Gogh. Show all posts

12/11/09

Starry Night - Vincent Van Gogh


Starry Night(created after the painting), Reed Pen and Pencil, 18.5 x 25.5 inches, Vincent Van Gogh, 1889, Museum of Architecture (?), Moscow, Russia


Starry Night, Oil on Canvas, 29x36.25 inches, Vincent Van Gogh, 1889, MoMa

Letter from Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo Van Gogh (excerpt)
June 17 or 18, 1889
...At last I have a landscape with olive trees and also a new study of a starry sky. Though I have not seen either Gauguin's or Bernard's last canvases, I am pretty well convinced that these two studies I've spoken of are parallel in feeling.

When you have looked at these two studies for some time, and that of the ivy as well, it will perhaps give you some idea, better than words could, of the things that Gauguin and Bernard and I sometimes used to talk about, and which we've thought about a good deal; it is not a return to the romantic or to religious ideas, no. Nevertheless, by going the way of Delacroix, more than is apparent, by colour and a more spontaneous drawing than delusive precision, one could express the purer nature of a countryside compared with the suburbs and cabarets of Paris... - source: Vincent van Gogh. Letter to Theo van Gogh. Written 17 or 18 June 1889 in Saint-Rémy. Translated by Mrs. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, edited by Robert Harrison, number 595.
When he wrote this letter, Vincent Van Gogh was 36 years old. He died July 29, 1890.

Link Full Text
Link Starry Night, Museum of Modern Art, NYC

5/31/09

Who Cut Off Van Gogh's Ear?


Self-Portrait, Vincent Van Gogh

"Either Van Gogh cut off his ear, or Paul Gauguin did it for him; art historians can't decide."

"While we have a minute now, did you hear about Van Gogh’s ear? No, not the traditional story...the one put out by two German art historians. They argue that Van Gogh didn’t hack off his ear himself..." - Lisa Mullins, The World, PRI, May 12, 2009

Link Audio and Full Text, The World Web Site, Public Radio International (PRI)
Link Van Gogh Google Image Search Results