Do you admire Van Gogh?

I like his “Sunflowers”.

I love everything he ever painted, including the ones already mentioned. I especially love his miner and laborer studies.

If you’ve never seen the 1956 bio film Lust for Life I urge you to do so.

Yes! And while seeing this version of Sunflowers in person absolutely blew me away because of the vibrancy of the color, many of his other works intrigue me more. For instance, I like Tulip Fields and some of his paintings of absinthe drinkers.

I am probably in the minority here but his paintings – to me – in general feel so lifeless. I really don’t get what was so amazing about his paintings to make him famous post mortem.

However, I think that Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity’s Gate) is his best painting.

Not especially, no. I always thought his work looks rough and primitive.
I think there are much more amazing artists that have come down the pike over the centuries.
I’m a Maxfield Parrish fan, nobody paints light and landscapes like he did. His work makes ol’ Vincent look like a 4th grade artist. haha

www.maxfieldparrish.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/millpond.jpg

@Coloma Next time you are in San Francisco, stop by the Pied Piper bar at the Palace Hotel.

@zenvelo Oh yes, The Palace Hotel..I love it! :-)

Admire? Yes, I’d have to say so; or rather, I admire his work, in much the same way that I admire the work of Charles Dickens (although I wouldn’t compare them in any other respect); namely, that I can see how good he is at what he does.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that I like it. But I do like “Starry Night,” without attaching a label to it.

Yes. I saw his painting of the bedroom with chair in a Paris museum and the colours were so vibrant and luminous. I looked at it for ages, couldn’t tear myself away from it.

I read a fiction book about him recently which I highly recommend. It is called ‘Let me tell you about a man I used to know ’ by Susan Fletcher. He is a side character as the story is about the wife of the warden of the psychiatric hospital that Van Gogh stayed in. It is beautifully written

The person or the artwork?

Yes, very much. It’s impossible to pick a favorite. I’ve seen the Sunflowers and Starry Night too often to appreciate them very much anymore. They are everywhere—on T-shirts, place mats, coffee cups. Like @Pachy, I also appreciate his early work from the time he was living among the impoverished coal miners in Belgium. My favorite from this period is the Potato Eaters. which has no vibrant color at all and doesn’t even look like a Van Gogh as we know him.

His later works were beautiful, vibrant and more so as his schizophrenia progressed. His strokes became deeper as he slathered paint thickly on the the canvas. My two top favorites from this period are A Cafe in Arles and the Bedroom in Arles—which he did while living in a cramped studio apartment with Paul Gauguin just before his most famous breakdown.

His last works are fantastic. His strokes become rushed, they share feeling of panic like they were painted by a man who knew he was running out of time. Wheatfield with Cypress and especially his last painting, the one that, according to his good friend/landlord/doctor, he was working on en plein air when he shot himself in the chest: Wheatfield with Crows. Gail and I had a memorable discussion about this one via PMs here. She liked it too. His advanced schizophrenia is evident.

Van Gogh is the most forged painter of all time. The world is so full of Van Gogh forgeries that many experts say they can’t tell whether the works we see in museums are originals or not, especially after the confusion of WWII. It is almost impossible to get a Van Gogh certified without tons of provenance as no expert wants to put his career on the line.

Like mathematician John Nash, Van Gogh had a tortured mind, but he was able to stave off the demons in order to create. To me, his story is as important as his work.

Yes. I’d have to be boring and say Starry Night. I have a small recreation of it in one room and a big poster of it in another . When viewed in black light it is even more breath taking.

I like all his famous paintings. The man was a genius.

@Espiritus_Corvus, I like The Potato Eaters too. I saw it at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam and stood a long while in front of it.

If he wanted to talk to me, I would lend him an ear.

I heard that he didn’t actually cut it off himself. He lost it in a knife or sword fight or something. I don’t remember the source.

Yes.

We all endure suffering.

At least Vincent has something to show for his.

Loving Vincent will be the world’s first feature length painted animation, with every shot painted with oil paints on canvas, just as Van Gogh himself painted.

@ibstubro That documentary looks amazing! Coolness to the 10th power!

@Espiritus_Corvus Funny you mentioned Bedroom In Arles, I almost made mention of that if I was to pick a favorite. I wasn’t aware VG was Schizophrenic, interesting to note the change in his work if you are VG savvy’

Yes. Wheat Field with Cypresses: “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_Field_with_Cypresses#/media/File:Vincent_van_Gogh_-Wheat_Field_with_Cypresses(National_Gallery_version).jpg”

Not schizophrenia but every artist has some sort of madness / passion for the art.

I don’t dislike Van Gogh, but he isn’t one of my favorite artists. I guess I’ve just seen his stuff so often and way too much of it, that I am bored of it, although I do like Starry Night quite a bit, as opposed to his other stuff, which is just meh to me.

I prefer Vermeer

And Gustave Caillbotte

Nice..!!

If I had to choose only one category of art and see no other forever, it would probably be the Dutch Masters; but close behind them would come the Impressionists.

I asked my art teacher what you get if you cross a Dutch Master with an Impressionist. It took two tries for my question to make sense to her, and then she said, “Late Rembrandt.” She said that in his last paintings—among which this one is my especial favorite—his style really is impressionistic, even though no one called it that then. I love Rembrandt and thought that was a wonderfully illuminating answer.

Van Gogh does not enter into the same echelon as Rembrandt.

@Kardamom, have you seen the film Tim’s Vermeer? It’s pretty amazing.

@Jeruba I have not seen that. Will have to look into it.

Where would you place Leonardo da Vinci if at all there’s ranking of artists of all times?

@imrainmaker Da Vinci was great, but had a hard time ever finishing. He is only attributed to fifteen completed works despite thousands of study drawings.

Da Vinci was a genius. Although I think of him more as a great thinker , than an artist. He was truly a gift to humanity.

No, is feel sad for him. He had quite a tragic life. His paintings are crude and unsophisticated. I do not think he sold any in his lifetime. That is only natural. I fail to perceive any good reason why his paintings are so expensive now. Art is in another Dark Ages even worse than the first one. The Impressionists and Post Impressionists, e.g. Van Gogh, are far inferior in skill to the great masters of the Renaissance and Baroque period, especially Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci. Diego Velasquez and Jan Vermeer van Delft.

@MrGrimm888 Oh so wrong grasshopper. “First commissioned portrait”;https://www.history.com/topics/leonardo-da-vinci.

~ ~ ~ ~And there were the crayons drawings Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. ~ ~ ~ ~