Dear Adland Friends,We are close to conclude this introductory section to my forum on the Great Master Art Works in the World History, which will only comprise one or maybe two more releases dedicated to the Eastern Painting before we get started on the main part of the exhibition.
Today I present Fishing in Spring, a masterpiece almost unknown to the general public by the most famous representative of post impressionism, Vincent Van Gogh. At a certain stage in his life, Van Gogh became interested, like many other European artists of his time, in Japanese master prints of the eighteen century such as Hiroshige's Bridge In The Rain and Eisen's Courtisan, which he reproduced in a most approximate fashion yet always maintaining his own characteristic style. Fishing in Spring has obvious influences of the Oriental Art, though I must warn the visitor that the general color of the reproduction below has been changed to a rather yellowish hue at Olga's Gallery - which I have unfortunately been forced to use as my image source today since the photographic reproduction on the website of the Chicago Institute of Art is, in fact, extremely poor.
Another great representative of the post impressionism is the slightly less famous painter Paul Gauguin.
As usual, I am happy with the good feedback received. Your posting at this forum is always appreciated.
Thank you,
Luis Miguel Goitizolo
GREAT MASTERS OF PAINTING
(click on the image to enlarge it)
Fishing in Spring, Pont de Clichy (1)
by Vincent Van Gogh
born March 30, 1853, Zundert, Netherlands
died July 29, 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris, France
Profile (2)
in full Vincent Willem van Gogh Dutch painter, generally considered the greatest after Rembrandt, and one of the greatest of the Post-Impressionists. The striking colour, emphatic brushwork, and contoured forms of his work powerfully influenced the current of Expressionism in modern art. Van Gogh's art became astoundingly popular after his death, especially in the late 20th century, when his work sold for record-breaking sums at auctions around the world and was featured in blockbuster touring exhibitions. In part because of his extensive, published letters, van Gogh has also been mythologized in the popular imagination as the quintessential tortured artist.
Van Gogh, the eldest of six children of a Protestant pastor, was born and reared in a small village in the Brabant region of the southern Netherlands. He was a quiet, self-contained youth, spending his free time wandering the countryside to observe nature. At 16 he was apprenticed to The Hague branch of the art dealers Goupil and Co., of which his uncle was a partner.
His artistic career was extremely short, lasting only the 10 years from 1880 to 1890. During the first four years of this period, while acquiring technical proficiency, he confined himself almost entirely to drawings and watercolours. First, he went to study drawing at the Brussels Academy; in 1881 he moved to his father's parsonage at Etten, The Netherlands, and began to work from nature.
Largely on the basis of the works of the last three years of his life, van Gogh is generally considered one of the greatest Dutch painters of all time. His work exerted a powerful influence on the development of much modern painting, in particular on the works of the Fauve painters, Chaim Soutine, and the German Expressionists. Yet of the more than 800 oil paintings and 700 drawings that constitute his life's work, he sold only one in his lifetime. Always desperately poor, he was sustained by his faith in the urgency of what he had to communicate and by the generosity of his brother Theo, who believed in him implicitly. The letters that he wrote to Theo from 1872 onward, and to other friends, give such a vivid account of his aims and beliefs, his hopes and disappointments, and his fluctuating physical and mental state that they form a unique and touching biographical record that is also a great human document.
Technical data (3)
Fishing in Spring, Pont de Clichy (Asnières),
1887
Oil on canvas
50.5 x 60 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL,
USA
Gift of Charles Deering McCormick, Brooks McCormick,
and Roger McCormick,
1965.1169
(1) This image is a courtesy of Olga's Gallery.
(2) Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica Online.
(3) Source: The Art Institute of Chicago.