October 01, 2004

The chaos in Van Gogh

Follow-up to Klee and the separation of painting and music from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

Notice how the painterly diagram, the method of brush-strokes, applied by Van Gogh is applied in the same way to both the figure and the background. The figure emerges from the materiality of the background, and threatens to dissolve back into it. Accentuating the matter of the painting is a deliberate attempt to make this more obvious.

Robert O'Toole : 01 Oct 2004 08:35 |  Tags:           |  Comments (3) |  Report a problem

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  1. There was a really interesting documentary series on TV a couple of months ago about Van Gogh, did you see any of them? He seemed to be a man in a perpetual state of chaos and emotional incongruity, which I guess is reflected in his painting style in differing ways throughout his life.

    01 Oct 2004, 09:39

  2. I saw the Van Gogh documentary about him trying to start his own artists' retreat in southern france and thought it was really great. Showed me how little I knew….

    01 Oct 2004, 10:10

  3. Robert O'Toole

    The Taschen book is quite good, and there are a few fascinating qoutes from Vincent. In the bargain bookshops in Cov and Leam they have lots of copies of "Van Gogh By Himself" – letters and paintings – which is also good.

    01 Oct 2004, 11:00

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