Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh is often regarded as a post-impressionist painter. Indeed, after a very brief period inspired by the realist painter Millet (whose influence is clearly visible in the picture "The Potato Eaters"), Van Gogh became friend of the French painters Pisarro and Signac, from whom he inherited the impressionists' typical themes (sight of cities, flowers...) and styles (bright and clear colors, fast brushstrokes).

But the happiness of those painting was doomed to disappear quickly after the numerous delusions that tormented Van Gogh's life, and eventually led him to the reclusion in the asylum of Arles.

Those months, spent in a deep state of depression, were the months of his most famous masterpieces.

The lighthearted and carefree (post)impressionistic views of Monet, Manet, Pisarro, Seurat and his other contemporaries are kilometers away from Van Gogh's deep, introspective, suffering pictures.

A quote from the artist

Let me stop there, but my God, how beautiful Shakespeare is, who else is as mysterious as he is; his language and method are like a brush trembling with excitement and ecstasy. But one must learn to read, just as one must learn to see and learn to live.

The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.

A few words about the music

Vivaldi's concerto for guitar was, originally, a concerto for lute (the modern classical guitar used nowadays didn't exist in the 18th century!). It's one of the finest examples of orchestral composition with the lute as a soloist from one of the greatest composers ever lived.

In the video you can listen to the entire II movement ("Largo") which is, without any doubts, the most wide known and appreciated.

Selected works

Starry Night - MOMA, New York

This is the last of Van Gogh's trilogy of paintings which feature starlit skies (together with "Caffe Terrace at Night" and "Starry Night Over the Rhone", that are placed at the beginning of the video). It was painted in Saint Remy's asylum and is often regarded as the most beautiful masterpiece of the dutch painter.

The Church at Auvers - Musée d'Orsay, Paris

The church's doors completely shutted and the woman walking away from the viewer give to the picture a clearly negative feeling. Indeed, these elements are connected to Van Gogh's life, and in particular to the dismission from the evangelical career and to the delusions received from the women who left him.