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Pose for yourself, Vincent 📸
With little money and difficulty finding models, Vincent chooses to paint himself. He made at least 35 self-portraits and experimented with facial expression. Just look at the different looks in each painting. 🎨
#vangoghinspires @misaovart 🧶
‘Painting and lots of sex aren’t compatible’, wrote Van Gogh. In his view sex was disastrous for the brain and hence for the concentration. He twice declared that love of art is more important than romantic love.
🌻 Vincent van Gogh, Couple Making Love (1886-1887)
Researchers think that Van Gogh added the lighter colours to this painting just over eighteen months later. Before 1885, he rarely used colour combinations like this: the narrow blue tree trunk next to the yellowy-orange autumn leaves. 🍂
Van Gogh thought that having a family would calm and inspire him. He eventually came to accept that he wouldn’t have a family of his own, and filled the hole by making art. This is symbolized in these two paintings that Van Gogh made in, after the work of Jean-François Millet.
During the initial weeks of Vincent’s stay at an asylum in Saint-Rémy, he was not allowed to leave the grounds. In the overgrown gardens within the walls of the complex, he made this work using heavily thinned oils that were left over from his time in Arles. 🎨
Vincent was very enthusiastic about this self-portrait that he received from the artist Charles Laval: ‘The portrait is very self-assured, very distinguished, and will be precisely one of the paintings you speak of, which one takes before the others have recognized the talent’.
This self-portrait was the last work Van Gogh produced in Paris; the city had exhausted him both mentally and physically. He told his sister Wil how he had portrayed himself: ‘wrinkles in forehead and around the mouth, stiffly wooden, a very red beard, quite unkempt and sad’.😣
📝 ‘I hope you’ll like that drawing. The vista – the view over the roofs of the village with the small church tower and the dunes – was so attractive. I can’t tell you with how much pleasure I drew it’, wrote Vincent to Theo about Scheveningen.
The composition of this painting is reminiscent of Japanese prints like those that Van Gogh copied in Paris (2). The large sun is an homage to Japan, and forms a halo around the sower’s head. In this picture, Van Gogh drew less on reality and more on his imagination. ✨
Is this a portrait of Vincent or Theo? We don’t know either! Van Gogh specialists cannot find conclusive evidence to say which brother is shown in the picture. That’s why the painting was renamed in 2019; it’s now called ‘Self-Portrait or Portrait of Theo van Gogh’.🌻
#BlueMonday is known as the most depressing day of the year. Van Gogh experienced plenty of gloomy days himself. But Vincent felt the healing power of art. It offered him solace & hope. Feeling a bit gloomy yourself today? Check out our meditation videos http://vangogh.nl/337u50MmAsm
‘What would life be if we didn’t dare to take things in hand?’, wrote Vincent to his brother Theo in 1889. What’s your challenge today?
🌻 Vincent van Gogh, Two Hands (1885)
Vincent painted this path in Paris on a piece of cardboard. The small painting later became a family favourite. Vincent’s sister-in-law Jo van Gogh-Bonger kept it standing on her mantelpiece. And her son Vincent Willem later had it hanging in his home. 🖼
See the gas flame on the wall? 💡In Vincent’s time, gaslight was relatively new. So Van Gogh usually worked during the day. But when he lived in the Yellow House in Arles, he had gas fitted. This meant he and Gauguin could carry on painting into the evening by gaslight.
#vangoghinspires by Lova_rt 🔔💙
In his lithograph ‘Sorrow’, Van Gogh wanted to convey just how empty and unredeemable a heart can be. For this image of desperate human grief, he was inspired by a quote from the work of French historian Jules Michelet: ‘I do not want to deceive or abandon any woman’. 📝
Van Gogh could apply his style just as deftly with pen and ink as with a paintbrush and oils. He first drew this landscape, and later painted this work.
1.🌻 Vincent van Gogh, The Harvest (1888)
2.🌻 Vincent van Gogh, The Blue Cart (1888), Harvard Art Museum
‘I’m unhappy with everything I’m doing. When I see the orchards again won’t I be more hardened, won’t it be like something new, a new attack, in the new season, on the same subject? And the same throughout the year, for the harvest, for the vineyards, for everything.' 🌳
‘There is enough to paint here for a lifetime’, wrote Claude Monet about Zaandam. At the time that Monet painted this picture, the 18-year-old Van Gogh was working in the warehouse of his uncle’s art dealership in The Hague.
🖼 Claude Monet, Windmills near Zaandam (1871)
After buying painting supplies with the money Theo had sent, Vincent wrote to Theo: ‘I regard myself as privileged above a thousand others in that you remove so many barriers in my way. (...) I can hardly put into words how thankful I am to be able to keep on working steadily'.
Golden Boy Gustav Klimt started his 'golden period' with his mural The Beethoven Frieze. He decorated this 'ode to Beethoven' with gold leaf and stones. In our exhibition, you will find a replica of the mural.
🖼 Gustav Klimt, Beethoven Frieze (detail) (1901-02) Belvedere Museum
Have a look inside Van Gogh’s only four surviving sketchbooks ✍️
Van Gogh often painted and drew in the garden of the asylum. ‘They all come to see when I’m working in the garden’, he wrote to his sister-in-law Jo, ‘and I can assure you are more discreet and more polite to leave me in peace than, for example, the good citizens of Arles’. 🌻
‘And I can see myself already in advance, on the day when I have some success, longing for my solitude and distress here when I see the reaper in the field below through the iron bars of the isolation cell’, wrote Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo. 🌾
Van Gogh painted this flower still life (1) after discovering the work of the Southern French artist Adolphe Monticelli in Paris (2). Vincent was impressed by his emphatic brushwork and his habit of using generous amounts of paint. 💐
🎇Happy New Year! We’re getting our anniversary year off to a delicious start with these amazing cakes inspired by Van Gogh. 😍🍰Made by the participants of @heelhollandbakt (The Great Dutch Bake Off) @OmroepMAX : https://www.heelhollandbakt.nl/uitzending/
Today is the last day of 2022. Everything comes to an end, including the expansion of Vincent's collection of paintings. This is the very last painting that Van Gogh painted in his life. Do you see signs of his end in this work?
🌻 Vincent van Gogh, Tree Roots (1890)
Vincent added colour to his sketches through words: '... The starry sky above – with the Great Bear – with a pink and green sparkle on the cobalt blue field of the night sky, while the town's light and its harsh reflections are of a red gold and a green tinged with bronzed.' ✨
Vincent didn’t have much confidence in Doctor Gachet, the physician who treated him in Auvers-sur-Oise. He thought he was even sicker than himself: 'Now when one blind man leads another blind man, do they not both fall into the ditch?’ In the end, the two became good friends.
Using black to allow a colour to shine? That’s what Van Gogh did in this painting. He used the black brushstrokes in the pear trees to increase the contrast with the yellow sky behind.
🌻 Vincent van Gogh, Landscape at twilight (1890)
Good advice from Vincent? ‘But you must love with a high, serious intimate sympathy, with a will, with intelligence, and you must always seek to know more thoroughly, better, and more’, wrote Vincent to his brother Theo in 1880.
🌻 Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait (1887)
Friend and fellow painter Paul Gauguin saw this painting in real life. He said that Van Gogh had sold the painting to a dealer for five francs and immediately gave away the money to a poor young woman in the street afterward.
🌻 Vincent van Gogh, Prawns and Mussels (1886)
Happy Holidays!🎄✨
#vangoghinspires @cute.gogh
Vincent believed that faith should not be taught, but that it was based on human feelings. And in particular on the feelings of workers and peasants: people from the so-called ‘lower’ classes. He drew multiple diggers.
Did you know that these are one of Van Gogh’s smallest self-portraits? In fact, the one on the right is his very smallest painting and is only slightly larger than a hand. He made both while living in Paris.🌻
Dimensions
Left: 27.2 cm x 19.0 cm
Right: 19.1 cm x 14.1 cm
The old farmhouses in Auvers (FR) reminded Van Gogh of his native region of Brabant (NL). After arriving in Auvers, he immediately started painting these farmhouses.
🌻 Vincent van Gogh, Farmhouse (1890)
Vincent’s letters offer you a glimpse inside his head. Writing his letters, he could never have imagined that they would one day be read by millions of people, bringing us closer to the artist. Have you read any of Vincent’s letters? 📝
Lots of Parisians spent their Sundays on the water in Asnières and Vincent also liked it there. He had learned a lot from the modern, French art. ‘[…] when I painted landscape in Asnières this summer I saw more colour in it than before’, wrote Vincent to his sister Willemien.
💥😁Yay! We have enriched our collection with an early portrait by Emile Bernard, a dear artist friend of Vincent. It is almost sure that Van Gogh saw Bernard's 'Portrait of a Young Woman' soon after it was finished, and was inspired by the work. More info http://vangogh.nl/UozF50M6MJZ
Vincent loved his birthplace of Zundert. As a small boy, he enjoyed wandering alone through the heath, meadows and woods. During his walks, he collected insects, flowers, and empty bird nests.
🌻 Vincent van Gogh, Reminiscence of Brabant (1890)
‘Yesterday I drew a very large, rather rare night moth there which is called the death’s head, its coloration astonishingly distinguished: black, grey, white, shaded, and with glints of carmine or vaguely tending towards olive green; it’s very big’, wrote Vincent.
Vincent was keen to learn more about colours. He studied all kinds of books on colour theory, but also experimented through other ways. To study the effect of colour combinations, Van Gogh used balls of wool, like these. 🧶By doing so, he also saved precious paint.
Gustav Klimt organized exhibitions for which he brought works of art from abroad; it was the latest art of the moment. He was inspired by the French artists who painted with flat surfaces in bright colors. This resulted in a series of powerful portraits of confident women. ✨
Etienne-Lucien Martin owned a restaurant in Paris, where Van Gogh was a regular customer. Vincent painted ‘le patron’ (the boss) in his work clothes. He originally used brighter colours for the portrait. But as he worked, he changed his mind and chose muted tones instead. 🎨
On a beautiful autumn day, Vincent painted the sunlight and shadows cast on this straight avenue of poplars. The light reflects on the leaves in various shades of brown, green and yellow. 🍂
1.🌻 Vincent van Gogh, Avenue of Poplars in Autumn (1884)
‘Now I have to change subjects, the orchards having mostly lost their blossom’, wrote Vincent in 1888. Just five days later, he had found a new source of inspiration: ‘As for me, I immediately stopped doing paintings and I’ve carried on with a series of pen drawings’. ✒️
Vincent and Theo sometimes struggled when they lived together in Paris. ‘Now he’s back to normal again and there’s no reasoning with him. It is unpleasant at home and I hope for change’, wrote Theo about his brother.
🌻 Vincent van Gogh, View from Theo’s Apartment (1887)
Was Vincent an open book? Or did he have secrets? Just like many of us, Vincent sometimes chose to keep things to himself. Like his relationship with Sien Hoornik, a former prostitute. He made multiple paintings of this woman. 🎨
‘In my life as a painter, and above all when I’m in the country, it’s not so difficult for me to be alone, because in the country one feels the bonds that unite us all more easily’, he wrote to his brother Theo and sister-in-law Jo in 1889. 🌻
