Van Gogh's Wheatfields

of emotional spontaneity in painting. Van Gogh was born March 30, 1853, in Groot-Zundert, son of a Dutch Protestant pastor. His mother, Anna Cornelia Carbentus, who liked to sketch and paint wildflowers in her spare time as a hobby, wa

s born into a family of art dealers. This combination of influences of art and religion had a profound impact on the masterpieces van Gogh would create as well as the passion he put into them. Early in life he displayed a moody, restless temperament that was to thwart his every pursuit. With a passion for life great as a young man ever had, he failed miserably in love, friendship, career, and in the three relationships to which he was most devoted, his minister father, his church, and his god. He suffered from an illness characterized by numerous attacks of depression, as well as his bouts with epilepsy that would forever haunt him. By the age of 27 he had been in turn a salesman in an art gallery, a French tutor, a theological student, and an evangelist among the miners at Wasmes in Belgium. His experiences as a preacher are reflected in his first paintings of peasants and potato diggers; of these early works, the best known is the rough, earthy Potato Eaters. Dark and somber, sometimes crude, these early works evidence van Gogh's intense desire to express the misery and poverty of humanity as he saw it among the miners in Belgium. In 1886 van Gogh went to Paris to live with his brother Théo van Gogh, an art dealer, and became familiar with the new art movements developing at the time. Influenced by the work of the impressionists and by the work of such Japanese printmakers as Hiroshige and Hokusai, van Gogh began to experiment with current techniques. Subsequently, he adopted the brilliant hues found in the paintings of the French artists Camille Pissarro and Georges Seurat. The painting method that he developed over the short span of his career was short, abrupt, brush strokes leaving thick lines of paint on the surface of the canvas. His work titled “Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat” revealed the thick lines of paint which were transformed into different shades of color as the brushstroke continued across the canvas. Another example of his famous artwork was the timeless classic “Starry Night”. This painting illustrated the different shades of color by the movement and swirling motions of his paintbrush. Towards the end of his life, Vincent’s emotions and his declining health, revealed a more dramatic spontaneous brushstroke and color mixture. His unique emotional use of color within his paintings was a variety of primary colors reduced and enhanced in hi

Some topics in this essay:
Stranger Earth, Field Cypresses”, Beach Saintes-Maries, Cornelia Carbentus, Grey Hat”, Modern Art, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, van gogh, Eaters Dark, Gogh Paris, “wheat field cypresses”, field cypresses”, van gogh’s, “wheat field, “starry night”, lines paint, color paintings, thick lines, passion life, image death, thick lines paint,