Vincent van Gogh in Paris

Vincent van Gogh in Paris

Vincent Wilhelm van Gogh Self Portrait

Винсент Ван Гог Автопортреты

Vincent van Gogh the fortieth self portrait ?

Oil painting on a small size hand weaved canvas; 35cm x 21,5 cm.

Price on request

LARGE IMAGE

An oil painting on a small size hand weaved canvas; 35cm x 21,5 cm, bearing traces of pinning on the upper corners, and was certainly never set on a stretcher.

It also shows traces of folding and an amateurish cleaning (part of the left moustache and beard are missing).

Freshly varnished and glued on a cardboard (for a quick reselling?).

The small painting depicts with dark colours a gaunt face, which could correspond to the artist’s condition; when newly arrived in Paris from Anvers, physically diminished with stomach problems, Vincent who lived by his brother Theo, had to undergo a mouth operation where he lost almost all his teeth and nearly famished to death.

Very little is known from this period, most of what we know being based on the brother’s reciprocal letters and scarce letters to relatives and friends.

2nd half June 1886

Fortunately we’re doing well in our new apartment. You would not recognize Vincent, he has changed so much, and it strikes other people even more than it does me. He has undergone an important operation in his mouth, for he had lost almost all his teeth through the bad condition of his stomach. The doctor says that he has now quite recovered.

Theo to mother

If I am right this portrait could have been inspired from the art of Louis Anquetin.

It is of common knowledge that Vincent tied strong bonds with Emile Bernard, Toulouse Lautrec and Louis Anquetin in the atelier Cormond.

Anquetin and Bernard developed a painting style that used flat regions of color and thick, black contour outlines. This style, named cloisonnism by critic Edouard Dujardin, was inspired by both stained glass and Japanese ukiyo-e.

In this painting an early cloisonnism is detectable, bold and flat forms with flat regions of colour and the prospect of a portrait of van Gogh by Anquetin is I think to exclude.

One example of Van Gogh and Anquetin mutual work can be seen in “Avenue de Clichy: Five O’Clock in the Evening”, which is said to have inspired Van Gogh in painting his famous Cafe Terrace at Night.

In 1886 Vincent begins a series of Self-portraits, turning to his own image: “I deliberately bought a good mirror so that if I lacked a model I could work from my own likeness.”

Vincent van Gogh will paint 25 self-portraits in Paris.

Vincent van Gogh

“The range of his experiments in style and colour can be read in the series.

The earliest are executed in the greys and browns of his Brabant period; these somber colours soon give way to yellows, reds, greens, and blues, and his brushwork takes on the disconnected stroke of the Impressionists.”

wikipedia

To his sister he writes: “My intention is to show that a variety of very different portraits can be made of the same person.”

I found a great similarity with a drawing of Vincent van gogh by Leavens.

Vincent van Gogh

When I first examined this portrait – what disturbed me the most was the expression; I could not understand his behaviour, raising eyebrows in such an atypical manner.

I thought I had found the explanation in a portrait of Rembrandt van Rijn as the Apostle Paul, 1661.

Because the message, I think, in Rembrandt’s painting is the revelation of the true light.

Saint Paul (as you know Saul) was confronted to a powerful light and converted to Christianity.

Vincent van Gogh

Rambrandt

I consequently wondered if Vincent, confronted to the light of Paris and to all these different techniques and enlightened palettes – had an eye-opening shock.

It could also be a simple homage to the master of the light: Rembrandt.

“It is legitimate to think that van Gogh was inspired by its favourite’s painters for the art of portrait, Rembrandt and Delacroix.”

From introduction: Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov.

Musée d’Orsay. 2 Février – 15 Mai 1988 Van Gogh a Paris. Edition de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris 1988.

On the radiography repents are clearly visible, the head was initially oriented more on the right, which confers an additional nose and three eyes to the subject.

The repents are the mark of a genuine investigation.

Radiography

van Gogh

A hallucinated man looking to its own soul with wonder, one of the most profound introspective portraits I was ever given to contemplate.

BLICK

20MIN

http://www.van-gogh-vincent.com

van gogh

Yves Calméjane

Histoire de moi. Histoire des autoportraits

Yves Calméjane nous propose un ouvrage qui s'apparente plus à un essai illustré, à la manière de Desmond Morris, qu'à une compilation systématique ou un docte exposé. Cet essai prend la forme d'un reportage dans le monde de l'histoire de l'Art et allie rigueur des informations et plaisir de découvrir le sens caché des tableaux. Car il y a de la jubilation à découvrir ce que les auteurs des autoportraits cachent, ou se cachent, en voulant tant se montrer.

L'autoportrait fascine et intrigue. Il révèle, provoque et exerce une indéniable séduction sur le public. Le fil rouge de cet ouvrage consiste à déterminer comment et pourquoi se réalise la prise de conscience de soi dans l'Histoire grâce à l'art et aux autoportraits.

Bien sûr, Rembrandt, Van Gogh ou Picasso sont évoqués mais des artistes méconnus comme Flicke et son ami Strangwish ; le Gentleman Pirate, Messerschmidt le sculpteur fou, la reine Victoria ou même Adolphe Hitler sont également présents dans ce parcours, qui rend aussi justice à des artistes comme Vigée-Lebrun ou Suzanne Valadon (contrairement à ce que l'on pourrait penser, ce "Moi" qui s'exprime à travers ces œuvres est souvent une femme), et s'attache également à éclairer le sens des apparitions en "cameo", de Van Eyck à Hitchcock, dans leurs œuvres.

Yves Calméjane, journaliste, a, entre autres, contribué à la relance de laRevue des Deux Mondes, et créé la première émission de télévision consacrée au multimédia sur LCI.

— Présentation

— Introduction

— Ni-Ankh-Ptah, l'exception

— Des Portraits au fond des cavernes

— Les Vénus préhistoriques : des autoportraits...

— Le Regard perdu des Dieux

— La Grèce, lieu de naissance de la philosophie... et de l'autoportrait

— L'Autoportrait de Dieu

— Lentement, dans les couvents du Moyen Age

— La Pierre avant la toile

— Des Petites Images aux grands portraits

— Les Artistes entrent en scène

— Dürer, le premier artiste

— Peintre et acteur

— Les Femmes, enfin !

— L'Artiste en écorché vif

— Artistes et princes

— Le Caravage, premier peintre maudit

— La Fête batave

— Vélasquez, peintre et courtisan

— Vermeer et Rembrandt : l'absent et le très présent

— Poussin l'enragé

— Messieurs les peintres

— Le Chien de Hogarth

— Les Etranges "Caractères" de Messerschmidt

— "Duels au pinceau" au temps des Lumières

— David, peintre et petit politique

— Moi malade

— Delacroix en Hamlet

— La Plume de Baudelaire

— Félix Tournachon et Hippolyte Bayard

— Courbet, Narcisse incarné

— Alice et Victoria

— Gauguin, tête brûlée

— Les Femmes effacées de Van Gogh

— Le Douanier volant

— Malewicz, le chercheur d'art

— L'Explosion prévisible

— Bibliographie