Portrait of the Artist's Mother (Van Gogh)

Last updated
Portrait of Artist's Mother
Van Gogh - Bildnis der Mutter des Kunstlers.jpeg
Artist Vincent van Gogh
YearOctober, 1888
Catalogue
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions40.5 cm× 32.5 cm(15.9 in× 12.8 in)
Location Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena

Portrait of Artist's Mother is an 1888 painting by Vincent van Gogh of his mother, Anna Carbentus van Gogh, drawn from a black-and-white photograph. Van Gogh's introduction to art was through his mother, herself an amateur artist. After years of strained relations with family members, Van Gogh excitedly shared some of his works he thought his mother would appreciate most, of flowers and natural settings. In this painting, Van Gogh captures his mother's dignified and proud nature. It was painted at almost the same time, and with a very similar palette of colours and pose as his Self Portrait (Dedicated to Paul Gauguin)

Contents

Background

Anna Carbentus van Gogh was an amateur artist who enjoyed making drawings of plants and flowers [1] and was a "keen watercolorist". [2] At the same time, it should be recognized that drawing and painting with watercolors was a common activity by the bourgeois strata at that time. From a large family, one of six children, Anna raised six children: Vincent, Anna, Elizabeth, Theo, Wilhelmien and Cornelius. [1] Anna enjoyed sharing her love of art with her children. Among Vincent's earliest drawings are copies of his mother's sketches of a bouquet of flowers and thistles. [3]

Anna's husband, Theodorus van Gogh, was a pastor, a long-standing family profession. Theodorus, known for his good looks and long sermons, came from a family of seven children. [1] Anna and Theodorus devotedly served the rural communities in which they were stationed; their actions modeled their religious beliefs. [4] Both mother and father believed that God was omnipotent, continually watching over them. They taught their children to look for God's presence in nature, such as the shape of the clouds or in the many colors in the sunsets. Theodorus van Gogh's favorite poet, Reverend Bernard ter Haar wrote in the poem "Song of Praise to Creation": [5]

Theodorus and Anna van Gogh's family, including Vincent, Anna, Theo, Elizabeth, Wilhelmien and Cornelius Famille van Gogh.JPG
Theodorus and Anna van Gogh's family, including Vincent, Anna, Theo, Elizabeth, Wilhelmien and Cornelius
"I lose myself in you, Nature,
How my mental powers yield,
Around which the Universe turns,
Exclaim the glory of the centuries,
Proclaim!
Or — be quiet, my toy, be silent!
Hear what Creation
Is singing!
To fall silent is very meaningful here —
And might be called reverence."

At the age of eleven Van Gogh was sent to boarding schools for training, which initiated his lifelong feelings of exile. [1] Van Gogh felt even more removed from the family after failing as an art dealer and in the ministry. When he decided to become an artist, his family members suggested possible alternate, more lucrative vocations which widened the division between Vincent and his family. Van Gogh's manner of dress, behavior and unusual love life was unsettling and embarrassing to the family. [6] Vincent too felt a division. By 1881 Vincent had developed his personal view of the world and realized it was quite different than his parents. To his brother, Theo he wrote "I can't settle into Father's and Mother's system, it is too stifling and would suffocate me." He continues, "I find Father and Mother's sermons and ideas about God, people, morality and virtue a lot of stuff and nonsense." [7]

When Vincent was hospitalized in Arles in 1888–1889, his mother wrote to Theo, "I believe he was always ill and his suffering and ours was a result of it. Poor brother of Vincent, sweetest dearest Theo, you to have been very worried and troubled because of him." She then said, "I would ask, 'Take him, Lord.'" [8]

As Vincent rose to the height of his career, he enjoyed passing on prized paintings to his family. "Great bouquets of flowers, violet-colored irises, great bouquets of roses," went to his mother. [9] Another example, "the most resolved and stylized of the three" paintings of women picking olives was made for his sister and mother. [10] [11]

Description

Van Gogh set out to complete a series of portraits of his family. This portrait was based upon a black-and-white photograph of his mother. In a letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh wrote, "I am doing a portrait of Mother for myself. I cannot stand the colorless photograph, and I am trying to do one in a harmony of color, as I see her in my memory." Van Gogh's mother appears to be a respectable middle-class woman, attentive and proud, against a green background. [12]

Memory of the Garden at Etten

Memory of the Garden at Etten (Ladies of Arles), 1888. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia (F496) Vincent Willem van Gogh 098.jpg
Memory of the Garden at Etten (Ladies of Arles), 1888. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia (F496)

Van Gogh painted Memory of the Garden at Etten to hang in his bedroom. He envisioned the older woman was his mother and the younger in a plaid shawl his sister Wil. To Wil he said he had "an impression of you like those in Dickens’s novels." [13]

Portraits

Van Gogh, known for his landscapes, seemed to find painting portraits his greatest ambition. [14] He said of portrait studies, "the only thing in painting that excites me to the depths of my soul, and which makes me feel the infinite more than anything else." [15] To his sister he wrote, "I should like to paint portraits which appear after a century to people living then as apparitions. By which I mean that I do not endeavor to achieve this through photographic resemblance, but my means of our impassioned emotions -- that is to say using our knowledge and our modern taste for color as a means of arriving at the expression and the intensification of the character." [14]

As much as Van Gogh liked to paint portraits of people, there were few opportunities for him to pay or arrange for models for his work [16] which may have been another factor in his desire to make a portrait of his mother.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vincent van Gogh</span> Dutch painter (1853–1890)

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created approximately 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold, symbolic colours, and dramatic, impulsive and highly expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. Only one of his paintings was known by name to have been sold during his lifetime. Van Gogh became famous after his suicide at age 37, which followed years of poverty and mental illness.

<i>Sunflowers</i> (Van Gogh series) Series of paintings by Vincent van Gogh

Sunflowers is the title of two series of still life paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. The first series, executed in Paris in 1887, depicts the flowers lying on the ground, while the second set, made a year later in Arles, shows a bouquet of sunflowers in a vase. In the artist's mind, both sets were linked by the name of his friend Paul Gauguin, who acquired two of the Paris versions. About eight months later, Van Gogh hoped to welcome and impress Gauguin again with Sunflowers, now part of the painted Décoration for the Yellow House that he prepared for the guestroom of his home in Arles, where Gauguin was supposed to stay. After Gauguin's departure, Van Gogh imagined the two major versions as wings of the Berceuse Triptych, and finally, he included them in his Les XX in Bruxelles exhibit. Apparent symmetry of F454 :

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theo van Gogh (art dealer)</span> Dutch art dealer (1857–1891)

Theodorus van Gogh was a Dutch art dealer, the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh. Theo's unfailing financial and emotional support allowed his brother to devote himself entirely to painting. Theo died at the age of 33, six months after his brother died at the age of 37. At his death Theo owned practically all of his brother's artwork. Theo's widow Johanna van Gogh-Bonger worked tirelessly to promote the work of Vincent and keep the memory of her husband alive. Theo made a significant impact on the art world as an art dealer, playing a crucial role in the introduction of contemporary French art to the public. His widow was able to draw on the connections that Theo made to promote Vincent's work. In 1914, she reburied Theo's remains next to Vincent's.

<i>Falling Autumn Leaves</i> Pair of paintings by Vincent van Gogh

Fall of Leaves , or Falling Autumn Leaves is a pair of paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. They were executed during the two months at the end of 1888 that his artist friend Paul Gauguin spent with him at The Yellow House in Arles, France.

<i>LArlésienne</i> (painting) Six similar paintings by Vincent van Gogh

L'Arlésienne, L'Arlésienne : Madame Ginoux, or Portrait of Madame Ginoux is the title given to a group of six similar paintings by Vincent van Gogh, painted in Arles, November 1888, and in Saint-Rémy, February 1890. L'Arlésienne means literally "the woman from Arles".

Vincent van Gogh lived during the Impressionist era. With the development of photography, painters and artists turned to conveying the feeling and ideas behind people, places, and things rather than trying to imitate their physical forms. Impressionist artists did this by emphasizing certain hues, using vigorous brushstrokes, and paying attention to highlighting. Vincent van Gogh implemented this ideology to pursue his goal of depicting his own feelings toward and involvement with his subjects. Van Gogh's portraiture focuses on color and brushstrokes to demonstrate their inner qualities and Van Gogh's own relationship with them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vincent van Gogh chronology</span>

This is a chronology of the artist Vincent van Gogh. It is based as far as possible on Van Gogh's correspondence. However, it has only been possible to construct the chronology by drawing on additional sources. Most of his letters are not dated and it was only in 1973 that a sufficient dating was established by Jan Hulsker, subsequently revised by Ronald Pickvance and marginally corrected by others. Many other relevant dates in the chronology derive from the biographies of his brother Theo, his uncle and godfather Cent, his friends Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, and others.

<i>The Roulin Family</i> Collection of Van gogh paintings at the Barnes Foundation

The Roulin Family is a group of portrait paintings Vincent van Gogh executed in Arles in 1888 and 1889 of Joseph, his wife Augustine and their three children: Armand, Camille and Marcelle. This series is unique in many ways. Although Van Gogh loved to paint portraits, it was difficult for financial and other reasons for him to find models. So, finding an entire family that agreed to sit for paintings — in fact, for several sittings each — was a bounty.

<i>Les Arènes</i> 1888 painting by Vincent van Gogh

Les Arènes is a painting by Vincent van Gogh executed in Arles, in November or December 1888, during the period of time when Paul Gauguin was living with him in The Yellow House. The bullfight season in Arles that year started on Easter Sunday 1 April and ended on 21 October. Van Gogh's painting is therefore not a study from nature but done from memory. Gauguin encouraged van Gogh to work in the studio in this manner. The painting may not be finished as the paint is very thinly applied, and patches of bare jute show through in places.

<i>The Painter of Sunflowers</i>

The Painter of Sunflowers is a portrait of Vincent van Gogh by Paul Gauguin. Van Gogh is depicted sitting before an easel, presumably painting his “Sunflower” series. The work, which is a piece from Gauguin’s “Arles Period”, was created in Arles, France, in December, 1888. The painting is in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. 

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wil van Gogh</span> Dutch feminist and the sister of Vincent and Theo van Gogh (1862–1941)

Willemina Jacoba van Gogh was a nurse, teacher of scripture, and early Dutch feminist. She is the youngest and best-known sister of artist Vincent van Gogh, to whom he was close, and the art dealer Theo van Gogh.

<i>Jug in the Form of a Head, Self-Portrait</i> Sculpture by Paul Gauguin

Jug in the form of a Head, Self-portrait was produced in glazed stoneware early in 1889 by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin. This self-portrayal is especially stark and brutal, and was created in the aftermath of two traumatic events in the artist's life. In December 1888 Gauguin was visiting Vincent van Gogh in Arles when Van Gogh hacked off his left ear before leaving it at a brothel frequented by them both. A few days later in Paris, Gauguin witnessed the beheading of the notorious murderer Prado. Gauguin shows his severed head, dripping with rivulets of blood, his ear cut off, his eyes closed as if in denial.

<i>Still Life: Vase with Pink Roses</i> 1890 Van Gogh painting

Still Life: Vase with Pink Roses was painted in 1890 by Vincent van Gogh in Saint-Rémy. At the time the work was painted Van Gogh was readying himself to leave the Saint-Rémy asylum for the quiet town of Auvers-sur-Oise outside of Paris. This and the similarly-dated Pink Roses reflect the optimism Van Gogh felt at that time about his future, both in his choice of flowers as a subject and the colors used. The painting is owned by the National Gallery of Art of Washington, D.C.

<i>Paintings of Children</i> (Van Gogh series) Series of paintings by Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh enjoyed making Paintings of Children. He once said that it's the only thing that "excites me to the depths of my soul, and which makes me feel the infinite more than anything else." Painting children, in particular represented rebirth and the infinite. Over his career Van Gogh did not make many paintings of children, but those he completed were special to him. During the ten years of Van Gogh's career as a painter, from 1881 to 1890, his work changed and grew richer, particularly in how he used color and techniques symbolically or evocatively.

<i>Butterflies</i> (Van Gogh series)

Butterflies is a series of paintings made by Vincent van Gogh in 1889 and 1890. Van Gogh made at least four paintings of butterflies and one of a moth. The metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly was symbolic to Van Gogh of men and women's capability for transformation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Early works of Vincent van Gogh</span>

The earliest known works of Vincent van Gogh comprise a group of paintings and drawings that Vincent van Gogh made when he was 27 and 28, in 1881 and 1882. Over the course of the two-year period Van Gogh lived in several places. He left Brussels, where he had studied for about a year in 1881, to return to his parents’ home in Etten, where he made studies of some of the residents of the town. In January 1882 Van Gogh went to The Hague where he studied with his cousin-in-law Anton Mauve and set up a studio, funded by Mauve. During the ten years of Van Gogh's artistic career from 1881 to 1890 Vincent's brother Theo would be a continuing source of inspiration and financial support; his first financial support began in 1880 funding Vincent while he lived in Brussels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Van Gogh's family in his art</span> Appearances of Vincent van Goghs family in his art

Van Gogh's family in his art refers to works that Vincent van Gogh made for or about Van Gogh family members. In 1881, Vincent drew a portrait of his grandfather, also named Vincent van Gogh, and his sister Wil. While living in Nuenen, Vincent memorialized his father in Still Life with Bible following his death in 1885. There he also made many paintings and drawings in 1884 and 1885 of his parents' vicarage, its garden and the church. At the height of his career in Arles he made Portrait of the Artist's Mother, Memory of the Garden at Etten of his mother and sister and Novel Reader, which is thought to be of his sister, Wil.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Still life paintings by Vincent van Gogh (Paris)</span>

Still life paintings by Vincent van Gogh (Paris) is the subject of many drawings, sketches and paintings by Vincent van Gogh in 1886 and 1887 after he moved to Montmartre in Paris from the Netherlands. While in Paris, Van Gogh transformed the subjects, color and techniques that he used in creating still life paintings.

<i>Memory of the Garden at Etten (Ladies of Arles)</i> Oil painting by Vincent van Gogh

Memory of the Garden at Etten (Ladies of Arles) is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh. It was executed in Arles around November 1888 and is in the collection of the Hermitage Museum. It was intended as decoration for his bedroom at the Yellow House.

<i>Van Goghs Chair</i> Painting by Vincent van Gogh

Van Gogh's Chair is a painting created in 1888 by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. It is currently held by the National Gallery, London.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Greenberg, J; Jordan, S (2001). Vincent Van Gogh: Portrait of an Artist. New York: Delcorte Press. p. PT10. ISBN   978-0-307-54874-0.
  2. ↑ Gayford, M (2008) [2006]. The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Provence. Mariner Books. p. 97. ISBN   978-0-618-99058-0.
  3. ↑ Silverman, 150
  4. ↑ Silverman, 147-8
  5. ↑ Silverman, 148-9
  6. ↑ Gayford, M (2008) [2006]. The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Provence. Mariner Books. pp. 124–7. ISBN   978-0-618-99058-0.
  7. ↑ Harrison, R, ed. (2011). "Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Etten, c. 21 December 1881". Van Gogh Letters. WebExhibits. Retrieved 2011-05-11.
  8. ↑ Gayford, M (2008) [2006]. The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Provence. Mariner Books. p. 228. ISBN   978-0-618-99058-0.
  9. ↑ Mancoff, D (1999). Van Gogh: Fields and Flowers . San Francisco: Chronicle Books. p.  23, 28. ISBN   0-8118-2569-8.
  10. ↑ "Women Picking Olives". Collection. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2000–2011. Retrieved March 25, 2011.
  11. ↑ Leeuw, R (1997) [1996]. van Crimpen, H; Berends-Albert, M (eds.). The Letters of Vincent van Gogh. London and other locations: Penguin Books.
  12. ↑ "Portrait of the Artist's Mother, October 1888". Collection. Norton Simon Museum of Art. 2002–2011. Retrieved 2011-05-11.
  13. ↑ Zemel, C (1997). Van Gogh's Progress: Utopia, Modernity, and Late-Nineteenth-Century Art. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 128. ISBN   0-520-08849-2.
  14. 1 2 Cleveland Museum of Art (2007). Monet to Dalí: Impressionist and Modern Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art. p. 67. ISBN   978-0-940717-89-3.
  15. ↑ "La Mousmé". Postimpressionism. National Gallery of Art. 2011. Archived from the original on May 10, 2011. Retrieved March 20, 2011Additional information about the painting is found in the audio clip.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  16. ↑ Gayford, M (2008) [2006]. The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Provence. Mariner Books. pp. 195–196. ISBN   978-0-618-99058-0.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.