what is so great about the art Vincent Van Gogh drew?

Question

Im writing a thesis statement for art and I need help on the topic.

Answer 1

Van Gogh's bold brush strokes and later his obvious anguish made his paintings hold a fascination for many people. Art is subjective and he doesn't make all people feel that way, but many of us find his art to be spellbinding. See an exhibit if you don't agree.

Answer 2

"Drawing is the root of everything."
Even in his drawings, his work has a luminosity that firstly makes you react ("Wow!") and then make you curious as to how he managed to do it. I have seen one of his Sunflowers at the National Gallery and the yellow simply glows.
However, you asked about the drawings rather than the paintings.
Take, for example, http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Van_Gogh/view_1.asp?item=1&view=l - A dutch street scene. Here, the roof, even with apparently simply stokes of pen, or brush, and ink capture glints of light. The composition, though different for the day, draws you inwards to the house at the end, where you see the somke arising from the chimney, and then draws the eye back again as you look for the smoke on the other rooves. The eye is then captured by the spotted flint-and plaster walls, leading to the pathway behind the houses, which contains sworls, which are reflected, or reflected back, by the bush on the right, which almost appears to dance. Nature on the right, and man on the left. It leaves you thinking.

With this scene, Cafe Terrace, http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Van_Gogh/view_1.asp?item=5&view=l again he captures detail and simplicity in the same picture. The canopy, with a few simple strokes captures material bounced in the wind. Yet the tables are almost carricatures, compared to the detail of the pattern in the cobble. Remember also that these are pen sketches - hurried pieces. The aim is to capture the essence, the interest, like these sketches http://uk.geocities.com/sweeteglantine02/2004-11_Sketches_on_a_train.jpg where a fleeting 5 minutes before the subject notices and becomes artificial. Unlike a 20 year masterwork like the Mona Lisa, where the final strokes were carried out with a brush with a single hair.
How do you compare the two? The answer is not to try. Each work, and type, has its own greatness, and is not beauty in the eye of the beholder?

Answer 3

I'm a fan of his art- it is refreshingly different from the mainstream art of his day and today's too. Even with his limited academic training in the arts, he was a superb draughtsman.What is the greatest thing about his art to me was that he followed his own unique vision and, though influenced by what was around him, he chose his own path to follow. He wasn't afraid of color and of pouring out his emotions onto his canvases. Dismissed in his day as a crackpot, it was only years later that his true genius was recognized. You should go to the website in Amsterdam- the Van Gogh Museum, and take a virtual tour-you will be impressed. and it will be an informative visit and give you plenty of fodder for your paper. Hope all this rambling was of some help to you.

Answer 4

That is like asking what was so great about the discovery of the New World. Most of the early settlers were wiped out through disease or battle. You have to look at the impact on history to really understand the greatness of Columbus' (and others before him) voyage or Van Gogh's exploration of art, not just the immediate reactions. Van Gogh did not sell because his art was not within the current context. In time, the value of all discoveries sort out. In the instances of Columbus and Van Gogh, distance -- letting history seep over time -- played its role in defining their greatness. In short, their timing was right.

Answer 5

He isn't so great compared to DaVinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Vermeer or Velasquez. He was one who took Impressionism to greater heights though. Really, it's a childish style. Impressionists noted that blending pigments is a subtractive process, while blending light is an additive process, so normal blending "muddies" colors. Their solution is to put colors in large areas and let the eye blend them. Georges Seurat carried this to its logical conclusion with Pointillism, i.e. small dots of color, not large blobs. Still, however one does it, paintings look amateurish. Van Gogh added bright colors to his work under the influence of Impressionists. He is classified as an Expressionist whose work displays intense emotion. Salvador Dali refutes the Impressionists. Many great artists in the past avoided "muddied" colors by more mature means than the Impressionists did. Dali could also do it, and I can in my paintings. All-in-all, Van Gogh was superior to most Impressionists, but he was inferior to Renaissance and Baroque painters as well as Dali.

Answer 6

You may also want to investigate the relationship between Van Gogh and Abstract Expressionism especially those artists who applied paint with a palette knife, since Van Gogh was the first (I think) to apply paint thickly for effect. I believe "Starry Night" is one example - but you would have to check it out.

Answer 7

It is so great because he was one of the first to use the impressionists technique. He is great in a way Picasso is great. They both created amazing paintings using a completly different style people had never seen before, they were the trailblazers. of course they are completly different artists but for the example...What he did with brushstrokes, and using the natural lighting of the sun to change the entire look of some subjects was revolutionary in the art world of that time. of course he wasnt really fully appreciated until he was dead..but there comes the term starving artists.

Answer 8

It was emotionally expressive... he used colors in ways that had never really been thought of. He also used new brush strokes that gave the sky a hazy, stirred up quality or brought texture to the most untextured object.

Answer 9

HE DID SOME **** AND MUD HEADS MADE THEM FAMOUS.END OF THE STORY.

Answer 10

a thesis? you study art and don't know about that? what kind of artist or critic you will be tomorrow?... if you study arts, get yourself another deppartment when you'll give something usefull, don't make studies for hobby... ;)