The artwork I chose is called “Self Portrait with a Straw Hat”.This art work is made by Van Gogh. Van Gogh was born in 1853 at the Netherlands, some of his most famous works are “Starry Night”, “Sunflowers”, and “Bedroom”, and he is known for his works of special use of colors and abstract paintings. After he die, his works gained increasing recognition and popularity. His contribution to art and his unique artworks sytles made him a legendary in the history of art.
When I walking through the gallery this painting just hooked my attention.The strong mix of light and dark colors in his art and his expressive eyes deeply attracted me and made me walk over and take a closer look. At the time I got close I notice that is from Van Gogh, then I had more interest to want to study and write about it, the dark color of farmer looking dress up with a bright eye catching hat is easy for people to get attention to it when going through that many artworks in the gallery.
This artwork is a self portrait of him self wearing a straw hat. In this artwork he was wearing a kind of farmer cloths and is light, means that when he draw this is not in winter season. From what I see this painting is that he use a dark color as a background color and with that he using a eye catching bright color for the hat to make a strong visual contrast. When drawing this art work it was at the year 1886 to 1888 in Paris, at that time he was lacking of money, so he can’t pay for a model for him self to draw, and he decided to buy him self a mirror and start drawing about 20 self portrait art work with different use of color and style.
From the description for this art work “This picture, which shows the artist’s awareness of Neo-Impressionist technique and color theory, is one of several that are painted on the reverse of an earlier peasant study.” At that time Van Gogh is trying to draw something new from traditional artwork, he was trying to use a new technique of drawing and new way use of color to establish an abstract painting, which at that time not many artist thought about it, is like he create a new road for abstract painting that still leads artist from today. He use those abstract painting leading people from old time aesthetic to modern aesthetic to lead more art lovers to have a higher level of understanding of arts an ways to look at it.
Resource:
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0164V1962#details
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh
Kiki, I can see why this self-portrait attracted your attention. Van Gogh painted this just as the first rumblings of Modernism are beginning in the art world. You can see him experimenting here with visible brush strokes. A realist would want the individual brushstrokes to be invisible, but part of Modernism involves drawing attention to the fact that this work is made from paint on canvas with a brush! I like the idea that Van Gogh did this on the back of an older, discarded work!