Term paper. Term Paper: Vincent Van Gogh. Literature & Language

TERM PAPER: VINCENT VAN GOGH
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Term Paper: Vincent Van Gogh
There have been several great artists in the past. These artists are specifically known for the uniqueness and the quality of their paintings. Vincent Van Gogh is considered among the greatest painters of all time. In almost all of his paintings, there is a rough beauty, bold colors, emotional honesty, and deep impacts. One of his most famous paintings is “The Starry Night”, painted one year before his death in 1889. The painting has oil on the canvas that can have multiple interpretations. However, the painting in general has an important theme, communication of vastness. Looking at the painting, it shows a small town which has been verified as the view that Van Gogh had from the window of his hospital bed. The town is juxtaposed against a vast and blue night sky that has several bright stars. Starry Night shows the influences that Van Gogh had on poetry, depression, astronomy, personal religious conflict, all which show how Van Gogh can uniquely create a view of reality. In this essay, I argue that the that the excessive expressiveness of the painting was as a result of the mental illness that Van Gogh was undergoing at the time of the painting.[Stassi, Vincent S., and Elaine O’Brien. "Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night: Insights from Poetry, Art History, and Astronomy." (2007).]
The painting shows clouds swirling in a starry night and a bright moon that appears to be overlooking a village. The painting is strong and expressive with dense colors making it easy to perceive from a distance. Van Gogh does amazingly to separate the earth and the sky in the painting and there is a sense the whatever happens on the ground is not affected by the motion in the sky. Below, there appears to be a drowsy town that is ready to go to a peaceful sleep. Above there are huge stars and powerful streams that seem to have un-easing movement. There is also light being radiated by the moon and the stars but they have an indirect direction. There are reflections that highlight the city at night. The cypress that grows between the earth and the sky seems to be eternal and undying. It provides a connection between the two. They seem to want ever so much to reach for the sky, to an extent that they might leave the ground. Combining the yellow and blue color brings much attention to the work.
At the time of the painting, Van Gogh was suffering from mental illness and that has been seen as the reason why his painting, the starry night, was so expressive. Specifically, the brush strokes were very thick, creating a drama in the painting that is hard to ignore. He had shown earlier signs of mental disturbances when he threatened his friend, Paul Gauguin, with a razor. His mental illness problem has also been blamed for being the reason he cut off his ear. In the course of his life, he struggled with mental issues and spent time in an asylum and hospitals. Time and again, he emerged from his mania and did wonderful paintings. However, he finally could not bear his mental issues anymore and in 1890 he fatally shot himself, dying two days later.
In the book, "Van Gogh’s Ears”, one astounding fact is that Van Gogh cut off is ear and gave it to a girl. In the book Murphy tries to reconstruct Van Gogh’s world. The main characters in the story are the café patrons, police inspectors, madams, prostitutes, his fellow painter, Gauguin; and his brother Theo. It is clear that the incident concerning Van Gogh’s ear has been misunderstood and Murphy writes the book in retrospect tries to put the matter to rest. The book summarizes the good life of one of the most celebrated painters of all time. It highlights how Van Gogh self-mutilated in 1888, painting the picture of an insightful yet very sympathetic and troubled artist. Several people have tried to explain the peculiar behavior by Van Gogh that led to him cutting off his ear. Reading the book, it is possible to conclude that he was frustrated by the fact that his brother, whom he so much cared for was engaged and his failure to be able to establish a good relationship with Paul Gauguin. Van Gogh did not just cut off a part of his ear, he severed his entire ear gravely. He delivered his cutoff ear to a woman who several people had believed was a prostitute, but rather she was just a woman who had been injured from a dog bite. The fact that Van Gogh had offered his own ear was a noble yet deluded attempt to help heal the woman. Other arguments also result from the ear mutilation. One such theory is that Van Gogh had homosexual impulses, especially with his friend Gauguin. From the onset, it looked as if Van Gogh was not in a settled state. He had threatened Gauguin with a razor a day before he decided to mutilate his ear. The only thing that held Van Gogh back was the powerful gaze of Gauguin that forced him to run away. The overall conclusion is that Van Gogh sympathized a lot with prostitutes and this made him identify with them as social outcasts. In investigating the life story, the author traverses several continents from Europe to the United States and provides a narrative of Van Gogh’s life when he was in Arles. She also clearly explains the life he lived, including the prostitutes and madams, police inspectors and café patrons, bohemian and shepherd artists. In the book, we encounter his benefactor and brother, painter and friend, Paul Gauguin and other locals who were subjects of his paintings.[Murphy, Bernadette. Van Gogh's Ear.Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.] [van Gogh-Bonger, Jo, and Martin Gayford. A Memoir of Vincent van Gogh.Getty Publications, 2018.]
The relationship between Van Gogh and his brother Theo was a marvelous one. Van Gogh never completed high school. When he dropped out, he got a job as a preacher where he stayed for 6 months. Being a man of commitment, he gave his all to this job but still lost it. That was when his brother Theo reached out to him with the hope of reminding him that his life was wasting away. Through his struggles, he wrote the first letter to his brother after he had given him a talk that his life was wasting away. In the letter, he starts by reminding Theo why the conversation they had had hurt him. He notes in his letter dated 14 August 1879:[Van Gogh, Vincent. Vincent van Gogh: the letters: the complete illustrated and annotated edition. Thames & Hudson, in association with the Van Gogh Museum and the Huygens Institute, 2009.]
“It’s better that we feel something for each other rather than behave like corpses toward one another, the more so because as long as one has no real right to be called a corpse by being legally dead, it smacks of hypocrisy or at least childishness to pose as such… The hours we spent together in this way have at least assured us that we’re both still in the land of the living.”
Even in the face of this disappointment, Van Gogh still harbors a feeling of having a close relationship with his brother. Through his letters, he wants to affirm to his brother the importance of having a close family relationship. In the same letter, he notes that:
“A prisoner who’s kept in isolation, who’s prevented from working &c., would in the long run, especially if this were to last too long, suffer the consequences just as surely as one who went hungry for too long. Like everyone else, I have need of rel...