Vincent Van Gogh:
Painting as Poetry

Published: Tuesday, 8 October 2024

"It’s a rather sad prospect to have to say to myself that the painting I do will perhaps never have any value. If it was worth what it costs I could say to myself, I’ve never concerned myself about money."- Vincent To Emile Bernard. Arles, on or about Tuesday, 22 May 1888.

It is hard to talk about Van Gogh without falling into cliché: he is one of the most well-known, beloved, and researched artists for generations. Thousands of books, research papers, and newsletters discuss Van Gogh's achievements and impacts. This makes it difficult to say anything new when so much has already been said…

…We’re gonna give it a go anyway. First, we’re going to breeze through some clichés, to get them out of our system. Then we’re going to dive into something you may not have thought much about: the paint he used. Finally, we’ll examine that Poet thing.

The Exhibition (and The Clichés!)

Entering the National Gallery exhibit hall is reminiscent of that scene in Doctor Who where the Doctor time-travels with Van Gogh to show him the success of his work. The Doctor (played by Matt Smith, Britain’s answer to Leo DiCaprio) asks Dr Black (played by Bill Nighy, Britain’s answer to… Jeff Goldblum? Maybe?), to describe Van Gogh’s place in the history of art, given that he was famously under-appreciated during his lifetime:

​As clichés go, that’s a pretty good one… If only he knew, *sobs*.

The National Gallery leaned into the “command of colour” theme, with six rooms each painted a sharply different colour to highlight the details of the selected works in that space. The third room, “The Yellow House: An Artist’s Home”, displays works reflecting Van Gogh’s ambitions on how to present his art to the public; he dreamed of turning his home into a communal art studio where friends could visit, work, and live together.

Tucked away in the corner of this room is the only self-portrait in the exhibition…

The Self-Portrait and The Paints

Van Gogh distinguishes his profile from the monochromatic background using swirling, dynamic and starkly different brushstrokes. It is rendered with short, intense marks, creating pronounced ridges which almost look like wood carvings or deep chisels on stone. In his early years, Van Gogh studied the self-portraits of Rembrandt van Rijn, and likely adopted the art style of monochromatic backgrounds from him (albeit, with a much MUCH more vibrant interpretation of “monochromatic”).

From a distance and online, Van Gogh’s style is aggressive, painting quickly with a heavy, but still gentle hand; this painting was apparently completed in a single sitting. In person and close-up, you can tell there are actually only thin layers of paint… much of the colour in several areas comes from exposing the canvas underneath.

The variety in paint thickness is eye catching both in person and zoomed in online. The tactile parts still look wet as if it were only painted recently, almost encouraging the viewer to touch (but, seriously, don't. Even if the guard is not looking and this is your only chance… Also, the paint is incredibly toxic with chromium and lead which, sadly, most likely exacerbated his mental condition).

​​Parts of the painting, like the palette, are relatively untouched exposing the canvas underneath. The paint on the palette is applied as if he squeezed directly onto the painting. Also, notice the same colours on the palette are identical to the ones used in the entire composition. Given it was painted in a hurry by a much-troubled artist, he remains intentional and thoughtful.

Art as Poetry

Van Gogh often wrote letters to his brother, Theo, and many of them are available to read. You do not need to read them before viewing his art, but I recommend you do. It is rare to have an opportunity to form a deeper understanding of an artist, and to read what they were thinking at the time, unencumbered by how their work was subsequently received.

In early September 1889, Vincent’s letters mention this Self-Portrait in a reflective mood:

Van Gogh was famously troubled- Self-Portrait was completed after he voluntarily admitted himself to the Saint-Paul Asylum in Saint Rémy de Provence– but the letters reveal another side to him. In his intimate journal, Paul Gauguin described Vincent as possessing "the greatest tenderness, or rather the altruism of the Gospel." His uncanny ability to convey emotion through brushwork and colour contributes to this poetic style.

Van Gogh painted how he felt and viewed the world around him with great sensitivity. Here, we can cast Van Gogh as a poet as well as artist, with his art expressing joy as well as pain.

We associate poetry with the written word, but not so much as it applies to art or painting. However, Van Gogh said himself, "one can speak poetry just by arranging colours well”, and we can find the essential elements of poetry in Self-Portrait… There’s rhythm created with bold impasto brushstrokes. There’s structure in the three-dimensionality created with how the paint is applied. Subject with what is depicted. Colour and its vibrancy establishes tone and mood through the saturation of deep violet blue. Emotion is evoked from the standpoint of the viewer.

Conclusion

In the end, it's all in the paint. Self-Portrait accurately conveys to us through the poetic application of an artistic medium how Van Gogh viewed himself, and how his image fit into the world around him.

Which in this exhibition makes sense. There's an enchanting world full of nature, still-life, and people worthy of capturing, and he did. And then there he was, off in the corner, observing the beauty around him.

Thank goodness for that.