“Wheatfield with Crows”

“Wheatfield with Crows” is one of Van Gogh’s most famous paintings and probably the one most subject to speculation. It was executed in July 1890, in the last weeks of Van Gogh’s life. Many have claimed it was his last work, seeing the dramatic, cloudy sky filled with crows and the cut-off path as obvious portents of his coming end. However, since no letters are known from the period immediately preceding his death, we can only guess what his final work might really have been. Some scholars believe it was the Tree-roots, but we have no proof that this was the case.

“Self-Portrait with Straw Hat”

Van Gogh was his own most important sitter. Because he hoped to become a portrait painter in Paris, he made an especially high number of self-portraits there, thus finding an inexpensive model in his own mirror-image.

“Sunflowers” 

‘I am working with the enthusiasm of a man from Marseilles eating bouillabaisse , which shouldn’t come as a surprise to you because I am busy painting huge sunflowers.’ It was August, the sunflowers were blooming, and Van Gogh desperately wanted to capture them in a series of 12 pictures. Because the flowers wilted so quickly, he worked on his canvases every day.

“Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette”

This curious and somewhat macabre little painting is undated. It was probably executed in the winter of 1885-86, during Van Gogh’s stay in Antwerp. He had traveled there from Nuenen in November 1885, and in January 1886 – in order to have the opportunity to draw and paint after the live model – he enrolled at the art academy.

“Portrait of a One-Eyed Man”

In the mental hospital at Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh gradually began to feel better. Contact with his fellow patients had helped his fear of madness to fade. ‘At the moment I am working on a portrait of one of the patients here. It is odd that if one is with them for a time, and has grown used to them, one no longer thinks them mad,’ he wrote to his mother. The patient he referred to was this “one-eyed man”, whom he painted with broad brushstrokes. His coat is nearly the same color as the background and even in the face, the green recurs.

Schilderijen (deel 2)

P.S.: (De plaatjes zitten hier even niet bij, die zitten in het originele Word-document en komen uiteraard ook in de film terug)

“Worn out”

A very well known drawing is “Worn out” made by Van Gogh. Van Gogh wrote to his brother: “How handsome such an old bald-headed workman in his patched bombazine suit can be”. He wrote this on 24 November 1882, he referred this drawing. The old workman was called Adrianus Zuyderland. He lived in the Dutch Protestant Almshouse for Old Men and Woman. Some of the residents of the house posed for Van Gogh, in return for a small payment.

Van Gogh used milk as fixative for his pencil drawings. He came up with this idea when he red it on a book, written by Armand- Théophile Cassagne. Van Gogh threw full glasses of milk over his drawings, just to counteract the shine of the graphite of pencil marks.

“Weaver with a baby in a high chair”

Only five years after his “worn out” drawing, he drew this one, it’s called “weaver with a baby in a high chair” During the period December 1883- August 1884 Van Gogh produced sixteen drawings of weavers in pen or watercolour. This piece shows a worker working hard, in sight of a baby in a high chair. That’s why it’s called like this. He got his inspiration from a novel called Silas Marner written by George Elliot, in which a luckless weaver only finds his luck when a child comes into his life.

During Van Gogh’s time in Nuenen, he painted and drew various weavers at their looms. This drawing are also studies in light effects, with the white and light-gray accents creating the impression of light from the outside falling on certain objects.

“The Yellow House”

In May 1888 Van Gogh rented four rooms in a house on Place Lamartine in Arles. His home can be identified from the green shutters. Behind the shutters laid his bedroom. The house had to be refurbished and furnished before Van Gogh could eventually move in, in September 1888. Until this time, he used the premises as a studio. Shortly after he went to live there, Van Gogh painted the building and its surroundings in this painting. Himself called it “La rue” which means the street in French.

“Old vineyard with peasant woman”

This drawing was made in Auvers, which is a town in the neighborhood of Paris. It’s made in May 1890, on one of Van Gogh’s first days in the village. He experimented in this work, and also in Cottages with wooden roofs, drawn in the same period, with various tints of blue, ranging from dark blue to light blue. As a contrast he painted the orange roofs. This work harks back to Van Gogh’s color experiments in drawings from his period in Paris.

“The old church tower at Nuenen”

This Church isn’t well known, but also this one is made by Van Gogh. He wished this painting to show the simplicity of a churchyard. He saw the ruined church tower. This tower is demolished shortly after he saw it. It was demolished because the Christianity was decreasing.

Students at Antwerp’s traditional academy learned by copying prints and studying plaster casts. After they had progressed sufficiently, they were permitted to study the live model. Skeletons were often used to help them understand human anatomy.

This skull with a cigarette was likely meant as a kind of joke, and probably also as a comment on conservative academic practice.

He painted the series to decorate the room where Paul Gauguin would stay when he arrived in Arles. He chose this subject because his friend had previously admired his paintings of sunflowers run to seed.

In the end, Vincent executed four sunflower still lifes; however, he felt only two were good enough to hang in Gauguin’s bedroom. He was later to paint three copies of them, one of which is the version in the Van Gogh Museum.

He also used this painting to experiment with color, as we can see in the effect of the yellow hat against the blue background, and the range of colors in the jacket, bow-tie and background.