Van Gogh

[kcghost]

To me Van Gogh might be the greatest painter who ever lived. His painting of the "Starry Night" really speaks to me.

 

[solideogloria86]

I just came back to add that this post obviously influenced Sp to try and one up me.

 

[Charlie718]

In the building I work in there was a tenant who collected the majority of Warhol’s works before they were expensive. Once he had most of them he then set the going prices and increased his wealth exponentially. The value of something can be all in the marketing.

 

[anotherbob]

The problems was that Van Gogh was way ahead of his time. Van Gogh never tried to sell. It wasn’t the way. He sent them to his brother in Paris who owned a gallery, but Theo, knowing that Impression wasn’t having an easy time selling at the time, never put Vincent’s work out front. He was embarrassed professionally, but he wanted to support his crazy assed brother. So, Theo kept sending him money.

So, it’s kind of a false thing that his work never sold. I mean, it didn’t, but no one ever gave it a real chance.

The problem with art, music, literature, or anything created, is that if it is too radical for the common tastes, it’s deemed bad.
If ACDC had lived in the 50’s, if Picasso had lived in the Renaissance, if Ernest Hemingway was released today... they wouldn’t have ever been heard of. The style has to fit the palate of the day.

Picasso’s Golden Lion he gave Chicago was deemed ugly back when, but today Chicago uses the design on most city seals and logos. It’s sort of point of pride for the city now.

getting people to even take a look as in really look is probably harder then getting people do freak out and do back flips and ask what God's you've been praying too after they look/listen/touch your art.

 

[anotherbob]

Vincent Van Gogh gave this painting "Still Life with Vase, Honesty, Pipe and Tobacco (1885)" to pay his debt to a local tobacconist. It sold at auction in 1996 for £552,000

Lots of other stuff mentioned in the article about Van Gogh and his pipe smoking, but this was my favorite part.

Source: Van Gogh’s trusty pipe: how the artist believed that smoking helped his art - https://www.theartnewspaper.com/blog/van-gogh-s-trusty-pipe-how-smoking-helped-his-art
View attachment 72605

love his quote at the beginning of the article. "In order to do good work you have to eat well, be well housed, have a screw from time to time, smoke your pipe and drink your coffee in peace.“

 

[bullet08]

Ah. The earless one. At least I can tell what he painted. Talking about ear, I heard it's pretty easy to yank it off. I think I heard that in one of Burt Reynolds' movies.

 

[OlJawBone]

I wonder what kind of blend he smoked

 

[LotusEater]

I used to live in Mery sur Oise a short walk from Auver where Vincent and Theo are buried. If you are ever in Paris it is not far and worth a visit. The fields and country side are beautiful- especially when the poppies are blooming.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

getting people to even take a look as in really look is probably harder then getting people do freak out and do back flips and ask what God's you've been praying too after they look/listen/touch your art.

It dis actually take a scandal… it was Manet’s (not Monet) PicNic picture that was displayed in the Salon of a naked well known prostitute with two prominent men about town that was done with flat backgrounds and a new way of thinking about art.
This scandal in Paris gave is the gateway for Impressionists and a re-look at pre-Impressionist’s work, like Van Gogh.

It was a paradgm shift, between painting what you see and storytelling…. It was a thousand years of painters striving to deny the paint and 2D surface for illusion and trickery.
It took a scandal to open the doors to new ways of using art. Van Gogh, Japanese theater prints, the invention of the camera, trains for mobility, prepackaged oil paints, and a botched Salon showing that featured a nude little trollip frolicking with gentlemen all crashed together to give us the Modern era.

 

[burleybreath]

Wow, everyone is so generous with their VVG appreciation. I feel bad for the guy: he was a total failure in almost every aspect of his life, he was a failure in art during his lifetime, most likely he suffered from mental illness or some chronic condition (that led to things like his being hospitalized and cutting off his ear. Hard life. Also find his work wildly over-rated. It has become a tragic commonplace in the "Story of Art History" that if a previous period hated someone's work it was because they were too stupid (or insensitive, or aesthetically challenged) to recognize it. Really, all those people who saw VVG's work at the time were just so out of touch and didn't understand his genius? Or is it that his work, so woefully thought of at the time, fit in more when abstraction came into vogue? Or that it is always a great ego stroke when someone can say, "Well, NOW we know..."

And, yes, I think I did just coin the phrase, "aesthetically challenged."

Sorry, sorry: back to pipes.

Heh. OK. For balance, let me say: I loathe Van Gogh's art. And Picasso's.

 

[Sweet Home Alabama]

The problems was that Van Gogh was way ahead of his time. Van Gogh never tried to sell. It wasn’t the way. He sent them to his brother in Paris who owned a gallery, but Theo, knowing that Impression wasn’t having an easy time selling at the time, never put Vincent’s work out front. He was embarrassed professionally, but he wanted to support his crazy assed brother. So, Theo kept sending him money.

So, it’s kind of a false thing that his work never sold. I mean, it didn’t, but no one ever gave it a real chance.

The problem with art, music, literature, or anything created, is that if it is too radical for the common tastes, it’s deemed bad.
If ACDC had lived in the 50’s, if Picasso had lived in the Renaissance, if Ernest Hemingway was released today... they wouldn’t have ever been heard of. The style has to fit the palate of the day.

Picasso’s Golden Lion he gave Chicago was deemed ugly back when, but today Chicago uses the design on most city seals and logos. It’s sort of point of pride for the city now.

Your much older that I thought.

 

[anotherbob]

It dis actually take a scandal… it was Manet’s (not Monet) PicNic picture that was displayed in the Salon of a naked well known prostitute with two prominent men about town that was done with flat backgrounds and a new way of thinking about art.
This scandal in Paris gave is the gateway for Impressionists and a re-look at pre-Impressionist’s work, like Van Gogh.

It was a paradgm shift, between painting what you see and storytelling…. It was a thousand years of painters striving to deny the paint and 2D surface for illusion and trickery.
It took a scandal to open the doors to new ways of using art. Van Gogh, Japanese theater prints, the invention of the camera, trains for mobility, prepackaged oil paints, and a botched Salon showing that featured a nude little trollip frolicking with gentlemen all crashed together to give us the Modern era.

the marketing is as important as the work (as far as accolades and sales) and then also mythology is intertwined (Ozzy eating bats 4 satan for example). But convince people it's worthy of their attention also in that case how many husbands could now admit to digging the painting?

 

[kgs]

I wonder what kind of blend he smoked

I do too. I recall reading (maybe in the article) that he wrote to his brother and said that the tobacco in France was very strong. I think Van Gogh was from the Netherlands, right? If I recall correctly the popular tobacco in that region was shag. Van Gogh relocated to France as there was something of a community of artists there. I had the pleasure of visiting Van Gogh's Paris neighborhood years ago. I got to see the cafe/restaurant that is the subject of one of his paintings, and I got to see the outside of the apartment he lived in. Also that was where he cut his ear off. Haha!

At any rate I imagine that Van Gogh smoked strong shag. That is my personal preference as well, so maybe my judgement is clouded. I understand that in that era shag was a cheaper tobacco. And as an artist he was probably relegated to smoking a cheaper tobacco.

In a recent exchange I was told that rustica was actually a common tobacco at various points in history. Rustica is, for those who are unaware, the original strain of tobacco. Virginia and Burley tobacco were the result of generations of breeding of rustica. Rustica is still available today however the only blender I know of that has used it is Mac Baren. Mac Baren has a rustica flake.

I have not tried rustica but I want to. I have heard that it is extremely strong, perhaps to the point of having psychotropic properties. It is after all the tobacco that was traditionally smoked by shamans or whatnot. At least that is my understanding.

Aside from his choice of tobacco I am also interested in knowing more about his pipe. You can see his depiction of the pipe in some of his self portraits. It appears to me to be some kind of billiard with a slightly bent stem with some kind of bone or metal embellishment on the shank. There is also another portrait that shows him clenching some kind of a pot shaped pipe with a long slender stem. I wonder what kind of choices one had in that era when it came to purchasing a pipe. On one hand pipes were ubiquitous at the time, on the other hand they were likely produced locally and there was probably not a lot of choice in terms of brand/maker. It could even be that it was common to have a custom made pipe.

 

[saltedplug]

Group membership is governed by the lowest common denominator. You want to keep, not exclude, the members. Once in the group you must adhere to its critical principles or you're out. The pressure to conform can be immense.

This is as true in the art world as anywhere else. Just let your work be beyond the bleeding edge and you will be refused equal accommodation.

It doesn't take long.

 

[kgs]

Group membership is governed by the lowest common denominator. You want to keep, not exclude, the members. Once in the group you must adhere to its critical principles or you're out. The pressure to conform can be immense.

This is as true in the art world as anywhere else. Just let your work be beyond the bleeding edge and you will be refused equal accommodation.

It doesn't take long.

This is not true for all groups. There are groups that will kick you out if you are not good enough.

 

[OlJawBone]

I do too. I recall reading (maybe in the article) that he wrote to his brother and said that the tobacco in France was very strong. I think Van Gogh was from the Netherlands, right? If I recall correctly the popular tobacco in that region was shag. Van Gogh relocated to France as there was something of a community of artists there. I had the pleasure of visiting Van Gogh's Paris neighborhood years ago. I got to see the cafe/restaurant that is the subject of one of his paintings, and I got to see the outside of the apartment he lived in. Also that was where he cut his ear off. Haha!

At any rate I imagine that Van Gogh smoked strong shag. That is my personal preference as well, so maybe my judgement is clouded. I understand that in that era shag was a cheaper tobacco. And as an artist he was probably relegated to smoking a cheaper tobacco.

In a recent exchange I was told that rustica was actually a common tobacco at various points in history. Rustica is, for those who are unaware, the original strain of tobacco. Virginia and Burley tobacco were the result of generations of breeding of rustica. Rustica is still available today however the only blender I know of that has used it is Mac Baren. Mac Baren has a rustica flake.

I have not tried rustica but I want to. I have heard that it is extremely strong, perhaps to the point of having psychotropic properties. It is after all the tobacco that was traditionally smoked by shamans or whatnot. At least that is my understanding.

Aside from his choice of tobacco I am also interested in knowing more about his pipe. You can see his depiction of the pipe in some of his self portraits. It appears to me to be some kind of billiard with a slightly bent stem with some kind of bone or metal embellishment on the shank. There is also another portrait that shows him clenching some kind of a pot shaped pipe with a long slender stem. I wonder what kind of choices one had in that era when it came to purchasing a pipe. On one hand pipes were ubiquitous at the time, on the other hand they were likely produced locally and there was probably not a lot of choice in terms of brand/maker. It could even be that it was common to have a custom made pipe.

I guess since he was broke usually and living on the charity of his brother, we could probably assume he smoked the least expensive tobacco from an inexpensive pipe, maybe one that the tobacconist sold him on credit?

side note, i wouldnt mind psychedelic tobacco, maybe i should give the rustica flake a shot.