Vincent van Gogh's black and white drawings and post-impressionist style

¶ … Vincent Van Gogh

Netherlands (Holland)

Vincent van Gogh was born in Groot-Zundert, Holland in 1853. He is most famous for his paintings like Starry Night, Sunflowers and the Potato Eaters. However he also drew over a thousand drawings with pencil and chalk. He was considered to be mentally ill, especially after he cut off his own ear, so he was put inside a mental institution. He even drew a portrait of himself after he did this called Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (Lubin 13). He died in 1890. According to Julius Meier-Graefe, his painting style is post-impressionism, which is an art movement that began in France in the late 19th century. This style is usually full of bright colors and sharp edges.

I chose to write about Vincent Van Gogh because I have always heard a lot about him but never really knew that much except that he cut off his ear. He seems like a very interesting artist so I chose him to write this paper about. I also chose three of his most famous drawings to write about because I found them to be very beautiful. These drawings are called: Young Man with a Pipe, Bent Figure of Woman and Cottages with a Woman Working in the Foreground. These drawings are all in black in white so they are not like the post-impressionist paintings that Van Gogh is famous for that are full of bright colors. But they are still very beautiful.

Young Man with a Pipe

This drawing is a portrait done with pencil and transparent watercolor on watercolor paper. Van Gogh drew this portrait in 1884 (Van Gogh Gallery, 1). He signed it in the bottom right corner with only his first name: Vincent. The picture is of a young man smoking a pipe, wearing a hat and a coat with buttons. He is facing to the side. He appears to be deep in thought about something but there is no way to tell what he is thinking about. But he definitely seems to be thinking about something important because he looks sort of sad. Van Gogh was able to make the young man look sad and deep in thought by the way he drew the expression on his face. His head is straight up but his eyes seem to be looking down. Also, he is not smiling, but that could be because he has a pipe in his mouth.

Van Gogh uses very thick lines and bold shapes in this drawing. The texture is fairly rough because he uses criss-cross lines on the coat and the hair. The hat is mostly straight lines but they are going in different directions. There are also some criss-cross lines on the man's face but they are lighter. I can see that even though there are no bright colors in this drawing, Van Gogh did show the part of post-impressionism that has dark outlines around the figure. Also, there is some light brown color in the chair and the man's hair, but other than that, it is all black pencil.

Cottages with a Woman Working in the Foreground

This drawing was done in 1890 with pencil and pen (Van Gogh Gallery, 1). This is the only drawing for the three that I am writing about that is not just a portrait of a person, but is a landscape with a person that is in it, but much smaller. This drawing does not appear to have been signed by the artist.

Most of the lines in this drawing are not as thick or dark as they are in the two portraits. There are some dark, thick lines on the roofs of the buildings and on the woman's skirt who is working in the field. But most of the lines seem curlier and skinnier -- especially the lines used for the trees and the smoke coming out of the chimneys. There are a lot more curvy lines in this drawing than in the other two, which mostly had straight lines. There is no color. The proportions seem to be correct because the houses in the distance are smaller than they would be if they were up close. The woman is bigger so that she will appear closer to viewer than the buildings. If she were standing right next to the buildings and was the same size she is now, she would look like a giant.

Conclusion

Vincent Van Gogh is an excellent artist. His drawings are not as famous as his paintings, but they are still great. He really knows how to make people look real and show the expression of emotions on their faces. He also knows how to make a landscape look real and in proportion. I would like to draw as well as Vincent Van Gogh some day.

1) "Young Man with a Pipe"

Vincent Van Gogh

Drawing, pencil and transparent watercolor on watercolor paper.

2) Bent Figure of Woman

Vincent Van Gogh

Drawing, pencil, pen, brush, sepia, washed

3) "Cottages with a Woman Working in the Foreground"

Vincent Van Gogh

Drawing, Pencil, pen.