Van Gogh X-Ray

I know I should talk about the Olympics opening ceremony but I didn’t see much of it. Yes, I am ashamed of myself for not watching. Not to worry, though—my mom caught it on her DVR so I will get to see it. I hope you all enjoyed that display of art and culture.

I did, however, see that amazing Men’s 4X100 Meter Free Style Relay. If you missed it, go watch it. It was a nail-biter!

Okay, let’s get to the art…

As you may know, Vincent van Gogh sold only one painting during his lifetime. His brother, Theo, paid for his housing and food, and his paints and canvases. But van Gogh never had enough canvases for the paintings he wanted to create. Because of this, van Gogh sometimes painted over older paintings when he didn’t have blank canvases.
It was possible to tell which paintings had been created on top of other pictures, but experts hadn’t figured out to see and recreate the older images. Until now. A group of scientists has used a new x-ray method to find a hidden picture behind a Vincent van Gogh painting.

In late-1884 and early-1885, van Gogh painted a series of small portraits which showed the heads of Dutch peasants in their huts. The paintings are very dark, like much of van Gogh’s early work. The scientists found one of these paintings hidden behind a painting van Gogh created in 1887, Patch of Grass.

This is pretty amazing technology. You can see the uncovered image, and read about how the scientists did it, here.

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Book Recommendation: Mini Masters Boxed Set by Merberg and Bober

I would love to review this entire boxed set of board books by Julie Merberg and Susan Bober, but I've only had the chance to read one of the books. It was great though and I'm confident in the entire collection.

The Mini Masters Boxed Set includes four small but sturdy board books: In the Garden with Van Gogh, A Picnic with Monet, Dancing with Degas, and A Magical Day with Matisse. If you click through to Amazon.com you'll notice that there are several more board books in the series that are not included in the set.

I have had the great pleasure to read In the Garden with Van Gogh. In fun rhymed lines, Merberg and Bober tell the story of a wheat harvest. The book is illustrated with van Gogh's paintings of wheat in all its stages of growth and harvest. And, of course, a connection is drawn between the growing wheat and growing children (who sleep beneath a starry night).

My opinion is that you can never have too many books, especially books about art. You can buy each of these board books individually but if you plan to buy two or more, it's less expensive to pick up the boxed set. Pretty good deal for an art education.

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Complementary Colors

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, fifth edition, a complementary color is “a color that combined with a given color makes white or black.” This is something you can test on your own. Use yellow, red, blue, green, orange, and purple. Mix two colors at a time in as many combinations as you can think of. What are your results?

To make the idea of complementary colors easier to understand, I am linking to a color wheel. Go look at it before you continue reading.

Complementary colors lay exactly opposite each other on the color wheel. In the simple color wheel you just look at, yellow is complementary to purple, red is complementary to green, and blue is complementary to orange.
When complementary colors are place next to each other, both look bright. This has been used to great effect in many paintings. Below, look at van Gogh’s use of red and green in Night Café (above).
Renoir’s use of blue and orange in Boating on the Seine.
Yellow and purple in Degas’ Woman Drying Her Hair. (This was painting at the end of Degas’ life when his eyesight had begun to fail.) Look how much more intense the yellow in the wall is than the red when placed against the purple of the woman’s body.

Try placing complementary colors side by side in your own painting and notice how bright the colors look.

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Art Nouveau: Henry van de Velde

Yesterday I posted about Art Nouveau in Paris and I mentioned Henry van de Velde who designed furniture for Siegfried Bing’s art gallery. Van de Velde was not from France but rather Belgium. It is not surprising that Bing would choose a foreign artist to design for his art gallery; he was an importer/exporter of art, after all.
Van de Velde was born in 1863. He studied painting from 1881 to 1884 and was influenced by such artists as Georges Seurat and Vincent van Gogh. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a painting by van de Velde and the one shown below was all I could dig up on google. In 1892 he stopped painting altogether, turning his attention, instead, to interior design.
He designed and built his own house and several more prominent buildings, including the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo. You can see pictures of many of these buildings by clicking here.

What is especially important about van de Velde (as far as Art Nouveau) is that he was the first designer to use curved lines in an abstract style. This style is basically the definition of Art Nouveau.
Van de Velde did not design in the Art Nouveau style for his whole life. Art Nouveau went out of fashion around 1910 and he lived for another 42 years. As he evolved, he taught art to others, thus spreading his vision to a new generation of artists.
The furniture shown throughout this post was designed by van de Velde. Notice the curving lines and the elements drawn from nature.

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Klimt's Studio

From 1912 to 1918, the final seven years of his life, Gustav Klimt worked in a cottage just outside of Vienna. It was in the countryside (though now the area has been developed) surrounded by fruit trees and a garden. The studio has fallen into disrepair and until November 2007 it was slated for demolition. That is until the Belvedere stepped in. The government of Austria has agreed to a nearly $3 million renovation (not that much money when you imagine how much is made from Klimt related merchandise) which will restore the cottage to its appearance in 1918. The building will be used as a Klimt museum where, among other things, visitors will be able to see the furniture the artist used when in the cottage.

This renovation is a great thing. Imagine standing in the very room where Klimt created his masterpieces, looking through the window at what he saw while he worked. It is not possible to visit studios of many of the great artists. The example that comes to mind is Vincent van Gogh’s yellow house in Arles which was destroyed in WWII.

For more information about the restoration of Klimt’s studio check out the art newspaper. At the site there is a much more detailed article than mine and includes a photo of the inside of the studio.

To see a picture of what the cottage looks like today, visit Art2u. You'll find a nice image along with an opinion on the upcoming restoration that you may find interesting. Keep in mind that the cottage was only one story when Klimt worked there and the upper floor will be removed.

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Ukiyo-e Japanese Woodblock Prints

Ukiyo-e are Japanese woodblock prints. If you haven’t yet done the project from yesterday, consider doing a Japanese-inspired woodcut print. The most popular subjects for ukiyo-e were landscapes, like the ocean scene shown below, and performers from “the floating world,” such as geisha (the picture shown here is by Utamaro) and sumo wrestlers.
Ukiyo-e became popular in Japan in the 1620s when a lot of people were settling in cities. A class of artisans came into being and they were looking for a way to produce many copies of the same image as easily, quickly, and inexpensively as they could. This was particularly useful when it came to illustrating books. At this time, the ukiyo-e were not in color.

Prints grew in popularity, especially among people who were not wealthy enough to afford original paintings. The ukiyo-e were also used to advertise for kabuki theater.

Beginning in the 1860s, ukiyo-e could be produced in color. This involved creating several woodblock carvings (one for each color) for every picture and printing one color on top of the next. Below is an example of one of these color ukiyo-e that you have probably seen before. It is called The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai.
Towards the end of the 1800s, ukiyo-e fell out of popularity in Japan but they served as huge sources of inspiration for artists especially in Paris, such as Vincent van Gogh and Edgar Degas. This is something I did not mention when I first talked about these artists but now that you know all about ukiyo-e, expect it to come up much more often!

Just a warning, I’m afraid I may be coming down with the flu. It’s been going around and I feel the start of a cold. If it develops into the flu this may by my last post until Monday. But I certainly hope it doesn’t happen.

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Book Review: Vincent van Gogh by Eileen Lucas

Today’s book review is again on a book featuring van Gogh. So many great picture books have been written about this artist that it can be difficult to choose one. There will certainly be more to come.

For a review of the Yellow House by Susan Goldman Rubin, click here.

Click here for more information on Vincent van Gogh.

Eileen Lucas’ Vincent van Gogh is perfect for kids just able to read on their own. She begins at the start of van Gogh’s career when he is making sketches of the poor and continues until the end of his life. She writes about van Gogh’s life and how he created his artwork, squeezing paint straight from the tube onto the canvas and layering the paint in thick textures. Lucas also introduces the idea of Impressionism.

The book is beautifully illustrated by Rochelle Draper who used van Gogh’s own paintings, including his many self-portraits, as inspiration. The pictures have the appearance of having been painted on canvas, just as van Gogh’s were.

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Seeing van Gogh’s paintings in a museum helped me to understand the difference between a poster and real painting. There’s is something truly special about looking at the same canvas that the artist worked on. When you look the Yellow House you know that Vincent van Gogh himself placed his hands on that canvas. Plus, the layering of paint makes van Gogh’s subjects almost 3D. You can’t see that in a book or online. Seeing van Gogh’s paintings is a great reason to visit a museum.

Because van Gogh painted so many pieces, it is almost impossible to visit a major art museum without seeing at least one. Also, he painted subjects that everyone is familiar with. Most people have seen sunflowers up close. Most people know what farm land looks like. It’s easy to be comfortable looking at van Gogh’s masterpieces because you can understand what he was painting. He also used bright, attractive colors in many of his paintings which make looking at them fun.

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Artist Profile: Vincent van Gogh

During his early life, van Gogh tried a lot of professions. He worked as an art dealer, a teacher, a bookseller, a minister’s assistant, and a missionary before he became an artist.

Van Gogh was Dutch and remained in the Netherlands from his birth in 1853 until 1886 when he moved to Paris. His brother, Theo, was an art dealer in Paris and tried to help van Gogh sell his paintings but they were too much darker than the art that was popular in Paris at the time. You can see an example of van Gogh’s early style in the painting shown here, The Potato Eaters. It is much different from his later paintings as you can see below. In 1886 van Gogh moved so he could learn about the style of art that was being practiced in Paris.

In Paris van Gogh was surrounded by impressionists who used a lot of color and preferred to paint natural subjects outdoors. Click here for more information about impressionism. He also met many painters including Paul Gauguin who would later live with van Gogh in southern France.

When he had had enough of living in the city, van Gogh left Paris for the more peaceful Arles in southern France. Here, he lived in the Yellow House that became the subject of a painting shown here. Compare this painting with The Potato Eaters shown above and you can see the effect of the impressionists on van Gogh’s style.

It was in the Yellow House that Paul Gauguin came to live with van Gogh. The two painted almost without break for two months but they did not get along well as roommates and Gauguin moved out after a bad fight. Van Gogh was growing ill and beginning to see things that were not there so he, too, moved out of the Yellow House, but he remained in southern France. Though he never stopped painting, doctors cared for him for the rest of his life.

Van Gogh and his brother, Theo, were very close. Van Gogh and Theo wrote many letters to each other and van Gogh often sent ink sketches of paintings he’d done. It is because of these letters that we know so much about van Gogh’s life. He painted hundreds of works of art and we know exactly when and where most of them were completed. Theo cared about his brother so much that he even sent van Gogh money so he could pay his rent and buy art supplies. When van Gogh became ill, Theo made sure he was well taken care of by doctors.

Bellow are a few more of van Gogh’s paintings. Notice the colors and the thick paint.

Starry Night Over the Rhone

Self Portrait 1889
Van Gogh painted many self portraits. To do so he used a mirror so the details are shown in reverse.

Want to paint the way van Gogh did when he was living in the Yellow House? Van Gogh painted quickly, dashing thick globs of paint onto his canvas. Oil paint had only recently become available in tubes so he didn’t have to make his own paints like artists before him. He could just squeeze the paint from the tube onto his canvas.

Van Gogh didn’t have to paint every little detail for the viewer to understand what he was trying to create. Try using quick, short brush strokes to create the idea of an object. For instance, if you decide to paint a tree, don’t paint each leaf, just use many dashes of green paint where the leaves should be. Use acrylic craft paints for this project. They will be thick enough to paint the way van Gogh did, but will be less expensive than buying many tubes of oil paint. Remember to paint on thick paper so the paint doesn’t soak through. Posterboard would be perfect. Just cut it to any size you want.

EDITED TO ADD: Vincent van Gogh by Eileen Lucas, book review

EDITED TO ADD: The Yellow House by Susan Goldman Rubin, book review

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The Yellow House by Susan Goldman Rubin

The Yellow House is a picture book, written by Susan Goldman Rubin, about Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin’s eight weeks as roommates in southern France. Rubin skillfully tells the story of the friendship that falls apart while the two artists live and paint side-by-side in Arles.

Rubin compares the artists’ painting styles, describing van Gogh as a painter who dashes paint onto his canvas in order to capture a scene quickly, while Gauguin takes his time, sketching his pictures before carefully applying thin layers of paint to the canvas. Jos. A. Smith illustrates these differences by placing paintings by each artist on the same page. He also adds his own drawings to show van Gogh and Gauguin painting together in the fields of Arles. Smith uses the same colors as the artists to show the sunbathed South of France that both painters fell in love with.

This book is an excellent introduction to van Gogh, Gauguin, and the most productive eight weeks of both their careers.

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