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Course: Europe 1800 - 1900 > Unit 5
Lesson 4: Post-Impressionism- Introduction to Neo-Impressionism, Part I
- Introduction to Neo-Impressionism, Part II
- Neo-Impressionist Color Theory
- Seurat, Bathers at Asnières
- Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte
- Seurat, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte – 1884”
- Van Gogh, Self-Portrait Dedicated to Paul Gauguin
- Think you know van Gogh? The Potato Eaters
- Van Gogh, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear
- Van Gogh, The Bedroom
- Van Gogh's Irises: Getty Conversations
- Van Gogh, The Starry Night
- Van Gogh, The Starry Night
- The Pont-Aven School and Synthetism
- Paul Gauguin, Self-Portrait with Portrait of Émile Bernard (Les misérables)
- Paul Gauguin, Vision after the Sermon, or Jacob Wrestling with the Angel
- Gauguin, Nevermore
- Gauguin, The Red Cow
- Gauguin, Spirit of the Dead Watching
- Gauguin, Oviri
- Gauguin, Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?
- Gauguin and Laval in Martinique
- An introduction to the painting of Paul Cézanne
- Why Is This Woman in the Jungle?
- Cézanne, The Bather
- Cézanne, The Basket of Apples
- Cézanne, Still Life with Plaster Cupid
- Cézanne, Still Life with Plaster Cupid
- Cézanne, The Red Rock
- Cézanne, Still Life with Apples
- Cézanne, Turning Road at Montgeroult
- Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire
- Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire
- Cezanne, Card Players
- Cézanne, Bathers
- Cezanne, The Large Bathers
- Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge
- Post-Impressionism
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Van Gogh, The Bedroom
Vincent van Gogh, The Bedroom, 1889, oil on canvas, 29 x 36-5/8 inches / 73.6 x 92.3 cm (Art Institute of Chicago). Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- How do you pronounce his last name?(7 votes)
- In Dutch you pronounce the 'gh' in 'Gogh' like you pronounce the 'ch' in 'loch' (from the Scottish pronunciation of 'Loch Ness', say). Pronunciations like 'go' or 'guh' have nothing to do with Dutch.(9 votes)
- I have read that Van Gogh sold only one painting in his entire life! Is this true? If yes, then what did he do for a living?(4 votes)
- He only made painting and was supported by his brother Theo for the last years of his life.(3 votes)
- Have you seen the airbnb painted like this painting?! https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/10981658(2 votes)
- It looks to me like the two doorways are somewhat blocked.Are they doorways? Has this been considered?(2 votes)
- I noticed that Van Gogh used both yellow and blues predominantly in his paintings, and this one is no exception. Did he make any other painting where both of these colors were used sparingly?(2 votes)
- Color...obviously mattered most to Van Gogh. That got me wondering if there have ever been any famous "color blind" artists?(2 votes)
- When was this done? it is a lot lighter than some of his others. Were his paintings more gloomy nearer to his suicide?(1 vote)
- there is rumour that despite his depression, he never actually commited suicide, but was killed by two boys, whose gun malfunctioned.(0 votes)
- who was this influenced by?(0 votes)
Video transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: "Only here
colour is to do everything, and by its simplification a
grander style to things is to be suggestive here first of
rest, or of sleep in general. In a word, looking
at the picture ought to rest the brain,
or rather the imagination." DR. BETH HARRIS: So the
passage that you just read came from a letter Van Gogh
wrote to his brother, Theo, and it actually refers to the
first version of this painting. But the passage that
stands out for me, "in this painting colour
has to do everything," applies equally well
to this painting. And when I think
about that phrase I think about a
radical idea that happens in the end of the
19th century with painting. The formal elements--
the color, the lines, the shapes-- painters
begin to explore the way that these elements can be
expressive on their own. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: What
you're talking about is the root of
abstraction itself. So it's not that this
is representative, it's that the formal
qualities of painting itself can have its own
experiential aspect, rather like music,
which uses pure tone. Color also, form also, could
have an emotional value. DR. BETH HARRIS: That's right. That the lines that
make up these painting, that the sense of solidity, that
the colors, that the harmonies between the colors,
the relationship of the shapes-- that
these things could suggest an idea or an
emotion, regardless of what they represent. Moving away from the idea of
art copying the real world. And in this case, the idea that
Van Gogh wanted to represent was one of peacefulness
and harmony and repose. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
For so many people, they think about Van
Gogh's brushwork, and they think
about his biography. But listening to the
artist's own words you realize that his attention was
on the structural qualities and the emotional
qualities of color. DR. BETH HARRIS: And although
we can see his brushwork in the pillows--
where the paint almost seems to describe the
puffiness of the pillows-- and even though there is a
sense of the space tilting up and rushing
backward too quickly and things seeming
slightly askew, I do get that sense, from the
painting, of Van Gogh trying to create a world here in
this yellow house in Arles, where he had moved from Paris. A place that could be the
basis for a community. A place for artists to
come and then a place to focus on making art. And there's something about the
simplicity of the space that feels so different
than the materialism and sophistication of Paris. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: So this is
a refuge and a deeply personal one. But he's created the space
with such love and such care. He's in a sense inviting
us to feel right at home. DR. BETH HARRIS: And love
and care in a different way than what we might
normally expect. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
The care that I meant was the care that's
based on his observation, his experience in this room,
his having touched that seat, his having slept in that bed. His intimate
experience that he's been able to convey to us with
an extraordinary immediacy. DR. BETH HARRIS:
Think for a second of the sophistication
of the Paris art world, and the expectation of
a Parisian audience. And look at that wooden
nightstand, or toilet table, as he called it in his letter. It looks like it was
drawn by a child. It has no modulation. It has blue outlines, and
the color is otherwise flat. The perspective
doesn't make sense. I think this painting
must have looked like it was made by an artist
who wasn't trained properly. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
And yet, here's an artist who has really
worked through a catalog of the styles of
the 19th century. Beginning for instance, with
the art of people like Millet, moving through the
impressionists, and then really paying attention
to the neo-impressionists, people like Seurat. and here, finding a a
direct application of paint that, I think, for Van Gogh
felt absolutely authentic. DR. BETH HARRIS:
Authenticity is the key word. I think for a lot of
artists, including Gauguin at the end of the
1880s and the beginning of the 1890s, this idea of
finding authentic experience and that being not the
experience of the city. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
This looks back to some of the ideas that
surround the work of, say, Courbet, where there's
this clear contrast between the
sophistication of the city and, in a sense, the truth
and directness of the country. And Van Gogh's been able
to convey that beautifully. This is a painting
that is also meant to be a kind of invitation
to his friends in the north, that he was hoping would
come down and join him. DR. BETH HARRIS: He
has an idea of creating a rather utopian setting
for artists to make art away from the city, in some sort
of communion with nature. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
Van Gogh gives us a kind of extraordinarily
sophisticated innocence. [MUSIC PLAYING]