Vincent van Gogh
Post-Impressionist Painter
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh was born a 160 years ago (1853) in Zundert, Netherlands (Dutch).
He had many jobs, such as working in an art gallery, as a teacher, in a bookstore, and as a preacher.
Around 1880, Theo, his brother, suggested he become a full time artist.
When he painted,Vincent liked to play with light and use loose brush strokes. He liked dark tones.
In 1885 Vincent went to Belgium and he discovered Japanese art which had bright colors - this influenced his style.
In 1886 he went to Paris and met other artists like Paul Gauguin and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. This is when he discovered impressionism and liked its use of color and light and the technique (pointillism) where you use small dots that blend into rich colors. So Vincent is regarded as a post-impressionist .
In 1888 Vincent left the city and went to a French country town called Arles - he was happy for a while but later he had mental problems and actually cut off part of his left ear!
In 1889 he was treated at a mental institution and he started painting with small stripes instead of dots and later also used swirls.
Sadly, in 1890, Vincent died at the age of 37.
Landscapes
Portraits
Element of Space
Space refers to the area in which art is organized.
Perspective is representing a volume of space or a 3-dimensional object on a flat surface.
Movement:the path the viewer’s eye takes through the artwork, often to a specific spot. It can be along lines, edges, shapes and color.
An effective composition has a foreground, middleground, and background.
Starry Night
"This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big," van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo, from France. In the painting, the thick, sweeping brushstrokes of a flamelike cypress plant unites the churning sky and the quiet village below.���Starry Night is probably Vincent van Gogh's most famous painting. Instantly recognizable because of its unique style, this work has been the subject of poetry, fiction, and songs.
While there's no denying the popularity of Starry Night, it's also interesting to note that there is very little known about Vincent's own feelings toward his work. This is mainly due to the fact that he only mentions it in his letters to Theo twice. In his letters to his brother, Vincent would often discuss specific works in great detail, but not so in the case of Starry Night. Why? It's difficult to say.
Unlike most of Van Gogh's works, Starry Night was painted from memory and not outdoors as was Vincent's preference. This may, in part, explain why the emotional impact of the work is so much more powerful than many of Van Gogh's other works from the same period.
Vincent Van Gogh began painting sunflowers after he left Holland for France in pursuit of creating an artistic community. The firsts were created to decorate his friend Paul Gauguin's bedroom. The majority of Van Gogh's sunflowers in vases were created in Arles, France during 1888-1889. Van Gogh did create some sunflower paintings prior to this time though in Paris, France around the time of 1887.
Upon looking at these paintings one begins to notice aspects that seem to flow from one piece to another. The colors are vibrant and express emotions typically associated with the life of sunflowers: bright yellows of the full bloom and browns of wilting and death; all of the stages woven through these polar opposites are presented. Perhaps this very technique is what draws one into the painting; the fulfillment of seeing all angles of the spectrum of life and in turn reaching a deeper understanding of how all living things are tied together.
4th Grade: Starry Night Mural and Papier Mache Stars
Create the starry night sky within a group. The skies will be attached together from all 4th grade groups and classes to make one large sky.
Create a star using papier mache. Star will be painted to mimic, or copy, the the star design seen in Vincent van Gogh's painting.
5th Grade: Paper Quilling
Quilling is the coiling and shaping of narrow paper strips to create a design. This technique has been around for hundreds of years. The short list of necessities includes strips of lightweight paper, glue, and a tool with which to roll the paper - that’s it!
Create a copy of Van Gogh's Starry Night painting using the paper quilling technique.
Vincent van Gogh