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Van Gogh’s Harvest

Sonya — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 19:37:27 +0000

This time of year, we celebrate the harvest and reap the benefits of the year’s hard work. Van Gogh frequently wrote about harvest time in his letters, and he often compared the harvest season to his own work and how he would someday get back all that he put into it. In a letter to his brother Theo from September 9, 1882 he wrote:

“I wish you could walk here some evening in this splendid autumn wood. What I bring back from it this year will be just a scanty harvest. However, I hope to bring a few things, and in time it will grow more and more.”

Van Gogh also appreciated the beauty of harvest time and became wrapped up in nature and absorbing the changes taking place around him. On September 19 of 1882, he wrote the following to his brother Theo,

“Sometimes I long for harvest time, that is, for the time when I shall be so imbued with the study of nature that I myself can create something in a picture.”

By the spring of 1883, Van Gogh was referring to his studies as the seeds from which he would grow great works. He used this metaphor in a letter to his brother Theo when stating,

“Well, the main thing for me to do now is to see to it that the quality of the seed (namely the drawings themselves) improves; it may take more time, but if the harvest is better for it, I am satisfied – I always have my eye on that harvest.”

Van Gogh did master drawing and, it was this skill that in turn helped him to produce great paintings as well such as the ones below which he harvested only a few years later.

Letters Source:

http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/11/229.htm
http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/11/233.htm
http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/12/277.htm

Van Gogh Windmills

Sonya — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 17:23:41 +0000

A native of Holland, many of Van Gogh’s early drawings depicted Dutch landscapes and life. A common fixture in the Dutch landscape even today is the windmill. Van Gogh created several different drawings containing windmills. The windmills were also a very popular subject for Van Gogh during his stay in Paris in 1886 and 1887. Living in an apartment with his brother Theo in Montmartre, the mills (le moulin) were not only part of the scenery but eventually became part of the nightlife as many were converted into dance halls and cabarets. However, Van Gogh’s depiction of the windmills showed more of the gray and desolate side of Montmartre rather than a city beginning to boom with growth from Paris.

Many of Van Gogh’s windmill paintings and drawings are on display in museums today all over the world. Sadly, Van Gogh’s painting Windmill on Montmartre, autumn, 1886 (F: 271, JH: 1186) was destroyed by fire in 1967. View more of Van Gogh’s Windmills here:

Happy Holidays from the Van Gogh Gallery

Sonya — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:01:28 +0000

We would like to thank all of our visitors for supporting the Van Gogh Gallery and wish you the best this holiday season. It seems only fitting that our wishes come from Van Gogh himself, so here are some of his holiday musings and a drawing from a letter he wrote to his brother Theo in December of 1882:

“My intention in these two, and in the first little old man, is one and the same, namely to express the peculiar sentiment of Christmas and New Years Eve. Both in Holland and England this is always more or less religious, in fact, it is that way everywhere, at least in Brittany, and in the Alsace, too. Now one need not agree exactly with the form of that religious sentiment, but if it is sincere, it is a feeling one must respect. And personally, I can fully share it and even need it,”

Letter Source:

Webexhibits

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Gogh Here for the Holidays