Google Art Project Assignment
For this task I have chosen the painting of Vincent van Gogh "Wheatfield with cornflowers", oil on canvas, 1890. It is currently located in the Foundation Beyeler (Riehen, Switzerland) and presented in their Google Art Project collection among other 23 exhibits: https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/asset/wheatfield-with-cornflowers/BwFKPHmzvqHGJw. The Beyeler Foundation started as a private collection and is now one of the finest museums of modern art in the world. Opened in 1997 in Riehen, today it comprises nearly 300 masterpieces from 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.
Van Gogh wrote in a letter: "I made a point of trying to express sadness, extreme loneliness (…) these canvases will tell you what I can’t say in words, what I consider healthy and fortifying about the countryside" (Jansen et al. 898). They seem to have grounding effect on him irrespectively of their stormy nature. This healing kind of sensation often found in observing nature cataclysms fascinates me as something so troubled that can also be therapeutic at the same time. "Wheatfields" might not be as urgently exaggerated as his more symbolic pieces with their vivid complementary colors but it has a different, subtle kind of intensity that captures our mind. This work can be compared with Jackson Pollock’s "Number 1", 1949, enamel and metallic, paint on canvas, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (Getlein 501, 22.1) as both evoke such an intricate reaction by fairly similar means.
Van Gogh’s major tools of perfecting his works’ intensity are usually color and texture. In "Wheatfields" series he wanted to experiment with color (Fell 43) because it produces a direct and powerful emotional response, and emotions were his way of perceiving the world and reacting to it through art. However, his overall dramatic use of color is slightly muted here to the duller tones and relatively calm color palette with carefully balanced yellow-browns and blue-greens varying in value and saturation. It produces movement and intensity by being used as both a pattern and a visual tool of unity and variety. Supplemented with rough brush strokes, intertwining shapes, repeated and contrasted textures it channels the nearly tangible gale tearing through the billowing wheat under troubled sky, a sense of vastness and evermoving nature. Texture is Van Gogh’s most distinctive tool of "animating" his works, a visual image so tactile that it appeals to our basic sense of touch making us feel the wind almost physically. The long impasto brushstrokes for the turbulent sky and his typical short unblended ones for the disheveled grass create rhythm – and also unify the painting. The use of patterns is wildly erratic – but properly balanced with the tranquil color palette it conveys unique harmony and serenity found even in the most unexpected places.
The similar technique also works for Pollock. Color and texture were his main instruments of conveying the meaning, unifying the painting, and creating rhythm all at once. His "Number 1" is also called "Lavender Mist" and yet we do not see any violet tones. Instead this lavender glow is produced …
