Creative Blog #8: The Van Gogh Museum

The Vincent van Gogh Museum

My artist of choice in ART101 is Vincent van Gogh and our recent assignments relate to purpose and function of a building's architectural design, style and movement. Here is my brief presentation of The Vincent van Gogh Museum located in Amsterdam.

It is housed in two separate buildings, the main one was designed by a Dutch architect and completed in 1973. Its modernistic style has many wide open spaces which lets the natural sunlight into an atrium and the museum galleries.

The Exhibition Wing was designed by a Japanese architect and opened in 1999. It is known as a delightful combination of West's "rational geometry" and East's "Eastern asymmetry." "Visitors enter through a passage under the Museum Square (Museumplein), and step into the Promenade of the Exhibition Wing, which forms an ellipse around a shallow, enclosed pond. The result is stunning."

Photos: Bottom photo image view. Courtesy: Amsterdam - Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam Museum at: www.amsterdam.info/museums/van_gogh_museum/ ; and, Top photo image view. Courtesy: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam at: www.aviewoncities.com/amsterdam/vangoghmuseum.htm

Peace,

Gwendolyn

Activity #14: Write About It! - RE-EDIT

Movement, Style, and Period

The first work, "The Harvest" (1890) Pen drawing over graphite, was created by Vincent van Gogh during the Post-impressionism period (1880-1910) in France. Van Gogh, along with other artists sought new forms of expression in the wake of the pictorial revolution brought on by the Impressionism period. Van Gogh employs pointillist style in dynamic brushstrokes, thick application of straight lines, and dots and dashes. "Harvest" seems to reflect a style shift - from from his darker manner to a style heavily influenced by divisionism or, pointillism. Van Gogh's style also include emotional intensity as he sought elemental truth through the inner world of the psyche. While post-impressionism period cannot be called a movement, it did provide the vital and creative link between the impressionist revolution and the emergence of all the major art movements in the 20th century (Getlein).

The second work, "The Emperor Moth" (1889) Oil on canvas, 33.5 x 24.5 cm, was also created by Vincent van Gogh in France during the post-impressionistic movement or period. "Moth" is a realistic style that seems similar to the first art movement in the 19th Century known as Realism. It depicts "the everyday and the ordinary, rather than the historic" as Van Gogh seems to escape the abstract in his tortured mind. It seems that Van Gogh employs his famous style of dynamic brushstrokes in the content and form of the subject matter along with thick applications of paint to create a lively image. His style of expression is representational and naturalistic as seen here in atmospheric perspective, view from above. Van Gogh employs a pure pallatte of complementary color harmonies of red and green to capture a fleeting moment in time in the life of this beautiful nocturnal creature.

Thus, the artistic style of both pieces by Van Gogh is characteristic of the Post-impressionism movement. Vincent van Gogh's style is dynamic brushstrokes, thick applications of paint, and use of a special pallatte in composing his works of art.

WORKS CITED

1. Amsterdam - Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam Online. URL: http://www.amsterdam.info/museums/van_gogh_museum. (2007).

2. "Art Periods: POSTIMPRESSIONISM in France" at URL: http:www.discoverfrance.net/France/Art/postimpressionism.shtml. (2007).

3. Getlein, Mark. "Living With Art" Eighth Ed. McGraw-Hill 2007. (2007).

4. The National Gallery of Art Online. URL: http://www.nga.gov/. (2007).

Peace,

Gwendolyn