Vincent van Gogh, Roses, 1890

For this (kind of late) art of the week I figured I would do a more recognizable artist. Van Gogh was a Dutch post-impressionist painter - which means that he took the ideas of impressionist artists such as Monet and extended them. Post - impressionist artist used the same vivid colors, distinctive brushstrokes and real life subjects but were more inclined to use geometric shapes and to distort form - in essence paving the way for expressionism. You can see in this painting that he uses a real life subject matter but there is something off about it, it is not a perfect still life - the roses are a bit distorted and the background leans towards abstraction.

One of the main reasons why I wanted to do a piece by van Gogh is so that I could talk about his very interesting life. Unlike many artists he did not spend his whole life working on his art, but instead was a missionary worker in a very poor mining region. He did not embark upon a career as a painter until 1880 - ten years before his death. He produced over 2,000 works in this short ten year period - including 900 paintings. Even more amazing is that most of his best known works were created during the last two years of his life. However, this was also a time where he was experiencing recurrent bouts of mental illness - which led to him cutting off part of his ear and his eventual suicide.

As you probably know, some of van Gogh’s paintings are now among the world’s best known, most popular and expensive works of art.