Posted by Susan Benford
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) was born in Groot-Zundert, Holland, the son of a Calvinist pastor. His early life was marked by career uncertainty: he left school in 1869 to work for an art dealer, who fired him seven years later; he spent two years as a lay preacher working with impoverished miners, but was denied ordination because Calvinist authorities considered him overly passionate. At the age of 27, van Gogh resolved to become an artist, receiving lifelong emotional and financial support from his brother, Theo. This support included frequent letters written between the two, providing an boon for art history - they facilitate analysis of the relationship between each of van Gogh's works of art and the historical context in which it was painted (click van Gogh letters for the complete English transcriptions of all 900+ letters to and from him).
From 1883 to 1885, van Gogh painted at his father's vicarage in Nuenen, Holland, where he painted The Potato
Jean-Francois Millet, The Sower. Oil on canvas, 1850. 40" x 32.5". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Eaters. In it, his empathy toward coal miners reveals influences from 19th century Realism, from van Gogh's personal ministry with this same population, from the famous painter, Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875), and from his lesser known contemporary, Jozef Israels (1824-1910). The realistic art and peasant imagery of Millet were enormously influential on van Gogh, especially Millet's famous painting, The Sower. In a letter to Theo describing
Jozef Israels, Peasant Family at Table. Oil on canvas, 1882. Approximately 28" x 41". Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdamhis own painting of peasants, van Gogh said, "While I was doing it I thought again about what has so rightly been said of Millet's peasants - ‘His peasants seem to have been painted with the soil they sow'". Van Gogh also admired Israels, a painter of fishermen and peasants whom van Gogh described to Theo as the "Dutch Millet". Israels' Peasant Family at Table doubtlessly motivated van Gogh to create his own version of a peasants' meal.
Compositionally, The Potato Eaters echoes Israels' work of art. Van Gogh's painting, however, has darker hues, an impasto paint texture, and more influence of Rembrandt's tenebrism (a painting style employed by Caravaggio and followers in which a few objects are brightly lit while the majority are in heavy shadow). Its
Vincent van Gogh, The Potato Eaters. Oil on canvas, 1885. Approximately 32" x 45". Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdamperspective is askew - look how abruptly the ceiling beams recede - and reveals van Gogh's technical naivete. Perhaps this lack of experience permits his passion to exude, however. The peasants' gnarled hands and fingers evince severe arthritic pain, while the folds and wrinkles in their tattered clothing seem to restrain some unwieldy force within. On the wall, the Crucifixion picture and clock seem poised to jump off the wall rather than remain attached. This explosive energy within this work of art is a heartfelt but unsentimental contrast to its solemnity and tranquility, in which these peasants have merely coffee and potatoes to eat after a physically taxing day. Van Gogh was pleased with Potato Eaters, writing to Theo that "in contrast to a great many other paintings, it has rusticity and a certain life in it. And then, although it's done differently, in a different century from the old Dutchmen, Ostade, for instance, it's nevertheless out of the heart of peasant life and - original."
Van Gogh's painting career was tragically abbreviated by his unspecifiable mental illness; the physician who admitted him to a psychiatric hospital in 1888 noted that Van Gogh had "acute mania with hallucinations of sight and hearing." His failure to achieve financial stability was profoundly troubling - in his lifetime, he sold only one painting, Red Vineyard at Arles, had no patrons, and was forced to remain financially dependent on Theo. Although he had 
recently received a postive review from the art critic Alberet Aurier (read it here), van Gogh shot himself and died in 1890.
Van Gogh's impact on art history is incalcuabale: in one decade, he created roughly 1000 works of art (including 70 paintings in his final 70 days) and inspired Fauvists, Expressionists and legions of famous painters including Gauguin (1848 - 1903), Matisse (1869 - 1854), Maurice Vlaminck (1876 - 1958), Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876 - 1907), and Francis Bacon (1909 - 1992). Even with the brevity of his life, van Gogh remains one of the most famous artists in art history.
Van Gogh, Red Vineyard in Arles. Oil on canvas, 1888. Pushkin Museum.
Posted by Susan Benford
Free Rice is a non-profit website run by the United Nations World Food Program in partnership with Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Their goal is two-fold:
1. to provide free education to everyone, and
2. to help end world hunger by gving free rice to those in need.
What makes Free Rice unique? It sponsors various web-based quizzes for which correct answers yield a small (10 grain) rice donation to those in need. Simple. And... the newest such quiz is "Name That Famous Painting" (my name, not Free Rice's!). Here's the link:Famous Paintings Game.
Spend five minutes playing it, share it with your students and families and friends... and don't hold me responsible if you find it a wee bit addicting.
P.S. It is NOT considered bragging to tell me how much rice you donated!
Posted by Susan Benford
One way to think of the evolution of culture in general, and the history of Western civilization in particular, is as a great conversation among the living and the dead. It is hard to imagine a more celebrated or more succinct illustration of this notion than Rembrandt’s Aristotle with a Bust of Homer.
Aristotle with a Bust of Homer. Oil on canvas, 1653. 56 1/2 " x 55 3/4". Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The founder of empirical philosophy, Aristotle is shown here as a living being, richly dressed, his gold chain unambiguously alluding to his world-dominating pupil and patron, Alexander the Great. The aging philosopher rests his hand on a marble bust of the father of Western literature, the blind poet, Homer, who was an archivist of human hopes and immortal deeds, and a personification of the creative spirit. Theirs is a silent, transgenerational dialogue—between life and art, between world and spirit—and thanks to Rembrandt, we, too, in contemplating them all, are drawn inexorably into the conversation.
With special thanks for this art analysis to David Nolta, Ph.D., Professor, Massachusetts College of Art and Design/Art Historian Consultant to Masterpiece Cards.
Posted by Susan Benford
The famous paintings of Johannes (Jan) Vermeer (1632 - 1675) are now internationally lauded, earning him a place with Hals and Rembrandt as the greatest Dutch painters. During his lifetime, though, Vermeer was obscure and rarely acknowledged as one of the famous painters then working. Although British painter Sir Joshua Reynolds called Vermeer's Kitchen Maid one of the greatest paintings in Holland during his visit in the latter half of the 18th century, mention of Vermeer remained rare until he was 're-discovered' in the mid 1850s, largely by the French critic Thore-Burger. His praise was concise when he asserted what many still believe today - "Vermeer's most remarkable trait... is the quality of his light".
There are no known preliminary drawings or sketches done by Vermeer before creation of his 36 famous artworks. Most historians believe he used a camera obscura (Latin for darkened or veiled camera), a darkened box or booth in which a pinhole functioned as a lens to project images (for more information on this camera, read here ). Use of this camera coincided with contemporary Dutch innovations in the field of optics, like magnifying glasses, telescopes and microscopes. Clearly, Vermeer was a pioneer in the science of color, as he deftly shows in The Allegory of Painting, known also as The Artist's Studio.
This famous artwork, which Vermeer never sold and which Hitler confiscated for his personal dwelling, is rich with commentary about the status of 17th century life and painters. The artist at his easel might be Vermeer, but his clothing is from an earlier century. Perhaps Vermeer is intimating a connection between famous
artwork and great artists of that previous era, and between the famous paintings of his own time. The painted mask may emphasize this point if it is interpreted as a symbol of imitation, an objective of 17th century Dutch painters. Vermeer's arm rests on a mahlstick, a resting prop for an artist's hand when painting fine, minute detail; he is painting Clio, the muse of History who is identified by what she carries and wears. Her laurel crown symbolizes eternal honor and glory, while her trumpet indicates that artists' fame is attainable and will be recorded by history,
The aged map behind Clio relates a major event in the Netherlands' history. Its northern provinces earned independee from Spain with the Treaty of Munster in 1648; these northern Protestant provinces lie to the right of the major crease, while to its left are the Catholic provinces still under the social and political control of the Hapsburgs, the Spanish royal family. Some art historians speculate that the mask is instead a death mask, indicating the death of painting in these Hapsburg provinces. Symbolism in the chandelier overhead isn't so ambiguous: it is adorned with the two-headed eagle, a symbol of the Hapsburgs, but is not functional without candles. Vermeer is suggesting that the influence of the Spanish royal family is on the decline. Perhaps, too, the chandelier is a reminder of the new found freedom of painters in the northern provinces - in celebrating their new republic, painters are branching out beyond the religious and history paintings mandated by the Catholic Hapsburgs.