Subject matter
This piece was done by the famous artist, Vincent Van
Gogh. It is a self-portrait done in the
year 1889. This piece of art was done by using oil on canvas. In my opinion the
mood and atmosphere of this piece gives a sort of sadness and depressed
atmosphere, because of the colours he has used. The colours in the background
are a mixture of the shades of blue, but he has chosen to use the darker and
dull shades of blue., which makes the whole painting seem dull. Also the
self-portrait itself gives off emotions. His face is a very serious face which
shows no happiness or joy.
Technique
Vincent Van Gogh rarely had much money to pay models to pose
for his portraits. Therefore Vincent Van Gogh decided to paint his own
self-portraits. He believed that by doing these portrait paintings he would be
able to develop his skills more as an artist.
This piece was done by oil on a canvas so it was 2D. His
brush marks in this piece are thick short lines of the different shades of blue
and white. The brush marks seems slightly messy however when you look at the
piece altogether , it all comes together to make a neat piece. The consistency
of the paint is very thick and messy.
Vincent Van Gogh has mainly used the colours blue ,
white gold and yellows. He has made most
of the image blue but his face is gold with a mixture of yellows and whites. I
think by having the dark blue background and then the yellow/ gold face, it
really brings the face forward and is what catches your eye as soon as you look
at the image. Also the colours make the picture look less flat. The tonal range
for this piece has light areas to show where the light is coming from and then
in the areas which have the shadows, he has used a darker tone of blue. For
example on the right of the image, on his shoulders you can see more a white
and light blue shades whereas if you look on the left of the image, there are
darker tones. From looking at this image it look rough because of the thick
brush marks that he has done. The composition of this image is all mainly
focused around the middle, where his face and body is.
Artist career
Vincent Van Gogh was born on the 30thMarch 1835
in Groot-Zundert and died on the 29th
July 1890. He was the oldest child of Theodorus Van Gogh, his name came
from his grandfather. For Vincent van
Gogh his childhood was very different to others, he was very serious, silent
and thoughtful child. His interest in art started at an early age of his life.
As a child he would draw a lot and be continued his drawings till he made the
decision of becoming an artist.
