07 April 2010

is van gogh the most overrated painter -- ever?

i'm posting from europe, during a month long stay in london after a month long stay in venice separated by two weeks in amsterdam and berlin. i've seen a lot of art again during this trip, up close and leisurely, and many amazing paintings, including a figure nude by charles guérin that was a wonder of reverent, glowing color.

but having seen the van gogh museum in amsterdam and the latest show of paintings and letters at the royal academy, london ("the real van gogh"), i have to ask: is van gogh the most overrated painter — ever?

set aside the critical propaganda and popular reception, go through any comprehensive van gogh exhibition, and just look at what's on the wall. can anyone look at one of those works, pick any one you want, and seriously say that it contains an exemplary artistic effort?

the academy "real van gogh" had many of his drawings, and it is painfully obvious that they were done without "the joy of the hand". they consist almost entirely of an early period of clumsy figures and wispy, almost smeary graphite shading, followed by a period in which entire drawings are built up of emphatic, obsessive dots and dashes that seem more intended to blemish the whiteness than create an image. the same dots and dashes serve for grass, bark, leaves and sky (easier and faster that way) ... indeed, in a letter to his brother he actually boasted of his slapdash technique ("done in ONE hour!"). after an early serious attempt in paris to master figure drawing, van gogh seemed just to give up on the challenge; his later figures and portraits are crudely and ineptly drawn. i caution that the images of his drawings you can find online are carefully selected as the most attractive. to my eye they also have been photoshopped to improve contrast. the drawings at the academy show were the representative originals — smudgy, faded and much less appealing.

some of the paintings were so ghastly that they looked like the work of a secondary school student. his divisionist technique has none of the fluency, complexity or subtlety of degas, signac or seurat, and his sense of visual color mixture and paint texture is far below what monet or gauguin put in play. his landscapes are spackled with paint the way wayne thiebauld paints desserts -- but this has a very different impact when used to represent clouds instead of pastries. his color poetry is infantile compared to degas (especially in the exquisite pastels at the musée d'orsay), and compared to manet or sargent he completely lacked any sense of darks and lights.

color poetry? brushwork mastery? artistic vision? -- really?

van gogh relied on a variety of artistic crutches, including a wired picture frame to help him see basic perspective — little wonder that he retreated into a "japanese" perspective flatness. he adopted a grade school  conception of "color theory" that was far cruder than anything a talented painter would tolerate; as a result his original colors were garish and clangorous, regardless of the motif or light. to borrow a quip from picasso: that highlight on the sunflower vase is not light, it is merely a dreary slather of faded paint.

and speaking of original colors and faded paint ... van gogh's paintings can't be trusted, or are known to have badly altered, because he was negligent and uninformed in his choice of fugitive pigments. he did not paint brown and ochre sunflowers in front of pale green walls, but what he did paint will be forever lost to you. that is, unless photoshop comes to the rescue — as it routinely does in every van gogh print and art monograph i have seen.

both museums made explicit mention of this problem and, at the time of my visit, the amsterdam van gogh museum had a full wall display on the issue. on display there was an early painting of potatoes that is almost entirely black on black. no, i don't mean it is dark. i mean the potatoes are black, the table is black, the wall behind is black. the painting image has been heavily photoshopped -- like a fashion magazine model — in this image; i suspect it may even be an image taken decades ago. the actual painting is much darker and nearly illegible. it's even a junior badge of sophistication among art connoisseurs to know that the grayed background in the new york met's iris painting was originally pink, not white, a fugitive carmine that has long ago flown home to baby jesus.

the saving twist for posterity is that he wrote a relentless epistolary narrative about his implacable efforts, wide experiments and messianic suffering to make himself into an artist -- those letters! all those heartwarming, earnest, utterly humorless but highly quotable letters about the holy mission of art and his devout penitent efforts to make himself spiritually worthy! one can in fact document a direct connection between the translation and publication of the letters, the fervent evangelizing by a coterie of "apostles," and the rise of van gogh's reputation as an artist. somewhere between the recluse who couldn't sell his work and the bloated myth romanticized by irving stone and fleshed out in film by kirk douglas, the art marketing juggernaut of the van gogh myth was born. and it's been rolling over gullible, conforming eyes ever since.

the nub of the van gogh legend (carefully lifted from the letters) was that he had the persistence, diligence and self presentation of the adult combined with the artistic talent of a child. this became a two pronged marketing message: (1) sweat hard enough and even you can become great; (2) childlike earnestness is all you need for talent. that manchild chemistry, atavistic, yearning and contrarian, makes him easy to market to the modern ethos. and mass marketing was in full flow at both museums, which put on sale a great variety of van gogh merchandising, prints, postcards and publications.

will that be cash, or card?

indeed, van gogh's entire fame now seems to rest on his marketability, both in the auction art market and in museum exhibition attendance, in dollar sales and wholly conventional esteem. sort of because it was something one expects to do on vacation in london, i stood in line for three hours to get into the academy show — actually i, my wife and a visiting friend took turns at the queue while the other two retired to nearby fortnum & mason for refreshment.

it's remarkable how the crowds make the fame and the fame makes the crowds. look at the stupefying length of this line! look at how huge is the van gogh museum in amsterdam! look at all those authoritative, lavish books! listen to the reverent blandishments of the audioguide! how could he not be great? no, greater than great -- immortal!

the royal academy show is the last van gogh exhibition i will ever see. i realized this when i admitted to myself that there are perhaps only two van gogh paintings i would look forward to seeing again, ever (neither was in the london show). but there are many paintings i hope to see again many times, or that i regret probably never seeing again ... such as that luminous guérin figure nude, perky pink in a green hat, which lacking critical blandishment will likely go back into storage at the hermitage in leningrad.

96 comments:

Elisabeth said...

I see your point although I admit I like his pen and ink drawings a lot and several of his late paintings. Still I think no one can challenge Picasso for overratedness. Georgia O'Keeffe is a close competitor in the lack of basic skills category.

Nice to see you blogging again.

Anonymous said...

Hi Bruce - it's me again - Jon from France - a year down the road. I disagree about Van Gogh - this was created by the intelligensia (with reason in my opinion) after he died. He was just a parson - who committed suicide - just before he mebbe made it big, but still :

I met Van Gogh on the road to Tarascon, and seized him by the arm, "Vincent", I've come back from the future - they've made you big – one of the greatest artists who ever lived !


He was concentrated, on his idea for a canvas, "The painter on the road to Tarascon”.

“I've had the breaks I need – met some impressionists and some other great painters in Paris, came to the South and got the dazzling colour idea, even the failed "Yellow house" community with my friend Gauguin – all served, don't feel sorry for me – well, you can if you like – that helps the legend I don't even care about all that - I just want - I've just got to paint.

Mike said...

Look, we're all subject to reactionary spasms now and then, but for shame, man! this has to be one of the most ridiculous, wrong-headed pieces of tripe it's ever been my misfortune to read. (What were you smoking in Amsterdam? I'd lay off the indicas and ask for a good sativa blend next time.)

Point for point, i.e., drawing, "artistic effort," divisionist technique, color poetry,--and why leave out composition and overall pictorial impact--you are wrong, wrong, and pompously wrong. And you could hardly have counterpointed it all more fittingly than with the link to that Guerin. Were there no good Bouguereaus on view?

Bruce said...

"mike" ... shouting and mocking merely shows you have no credible opinion on the subject. you've succumbed so far to decades of hype and misinformation that an alternative view actually upsets you. which usually signifies a person with few real convictions of their own ...

Anonymous said...

I love that last comment.

I do agree. The emperor has no clothes.

One point though is that some of his paintings have faded as you noted with the irises; I suspect the same deterioration of the paint pigments has happened to the aforementioned potato painting.

I also visited many museums this past year and have to admit I did not like one piece of work at the Van Gogh museum. The funny thing is that one of my favorite pieces I saw prior to that was the self portrait of Van Gogh at the Musee d'Orsay. The blue background in that painting was surreal.

Overall though, I must agree. Van Gogh is not a great painter, nor even a good one. This goes for Picasso as well. I think I disliked the Picasso museum even more than Van Gogh.

Anonymous said...

Fact of the matter is, when you see a van gogh painting, you FEEL something. I don't even know what it is that you feel, it's a strange mixture of feelings, as strange as his colour use and technique.
As for being overrated..... He shot himself in the chest, seeing himself as a complete and utter failure.
If anything, he was underrated.

Anonymous said...

wow that is insane... to not recognize van gogh as a great is very sad... i feel sorry for ya mate, no offence

Sam Zumwalt said...

Yeah the world must be wrong because you don't get it. That is it. I cannot speak intelligently on art like you can, maybe I decided to devote my formidable years studying more relevant studies that fit my personality, i.e. literature, woodworking, webdesign, etc; however I do know how a painting makes me feel when I see it. I really knew very little about art (and nearly as much now) when I first saw a impressionist and post-impressionist exhibit at MFAH (Museum of Fine Arts Houston) earlier this year. I was dragged there by a girl and had very little interest in art, but much interest in her. I had never really been exposed to any of the paintings or artist prior to that night, but after having spent time walking around and examining each piece, I was enthralled by Van Gogh and Edouard Manet. I do not know why, but I was. After that night I went home and googled both and fell in love with each ones works. For me "Masked Ball at the Opera" (which was there) and "Night Cafe" (which was not there.) Turned out to be two of my favorite paintings.

To my point, I suppose. When I was in college I was told that I was to love William Faulkner, but for me he was long winded and just downright boring, but that does not mean that I can say he is overrated. I know what he wrote about was different and had its own merits. I would much rather read something else, but does not mean I am going to slag off Faulkner because I do not get it. Art is subjective, but saying someone is overrated is not. In your/this blog you have made a very weak point citing where all of these artist are better technically than Van Gogh, but what you left out is the way that he makes people feel when you see his painting. If millions of people feel somehting when they see his works than that alone means he is not overrated. You just don't get it and there is nothing wrong with that, I don't get William Faulkner.

Bruce said...

sam, i'm glad conformity and sensitive feelings help you with the girls. but "not getting it" is assuming what you have to prove.

unlike you, i have actually seen most of van gogh's publicly displayed canvases *in person* (in european and usa museums, along with three major touring exhibitions). i've actually stood in front of the paintings and examined their impact with my own eyes. i also understand how painting is done, and specifically how painting was done in the 19th century. i've read van gogh's letters in the unabridged collection. my summary judgment is that van gogh is a trainwreck marketed as a tragedy, and ineptitude marketed as innovation.

certainly "feeling" is something art inspires in some people. but there is a difference between feeling inspired by sentimentality and an awesome reputation, and feeling inspired by intelligent taste and good culture. the only way you will know which is which is actually to see and study the paintings you want to talk about, rather than look at them online and read about them in books. that is a point that many other commenters here have missed as well.

Marianna said...

Hello,

Enjoyed your commentary on VanGogh and I totally agree. I have also seen many paintings by VanGogh, Picasso, Seuarat, Klimt, Gughan, Michelangelo, and many others. As an example there were many artists in Musee d'Orsey that were much better then VanGogh hanging near his exhibit. I remember being surprised how unfinished his paintings looked. And how they lacked depth and expression especially ompared to the others.
I sort of felt that way about the Mona Lisa, although small dark and exquisitely painted it left me cold. Although I would not call Leonardo DaVinci overrated just the Mona Lisa.

The art world makes it's own heroes and I often shake my head in amazement at which artists are elevated and which are not.

I do believe the age of civil discourse is long past and most people would rather bully a dissenting voice then sit down and have a reasonable well informed debate. For it is SO much easier to follow popular opinion then have an informed one of their own.

Long live Ignorance and Anti-intellectualism! And bravo to you for having a dissenting voice.

Best,
Marianna

Anonymous said...

Now I'm just going to say that this is only me. You need not listen to my view and how I look at visual art. Because if you asked me to tell you what visual art is, I would reply with:” I do not know". I paint my work with colours and waves that follow the emotion of the happiness and pain I have experienced in my life. Van Gogh was not an artist who's work I saw first. I saw the mona lisa first. And if we are going to be Neo classicists or renaissance men then we would comment that its a nice painting, but in terms of it being Leonardo’s work, it probably the most overrated painting ever, compared to his Madonna of the rocks which is just unbelievably good. Van Gogh's work I can admit was never as structurally or technically as brilliant as turner or Rembrandt’s. But my God that man could colour. His natural mastery over colour and me observing his paintings after seeing starry night helped me build a natural sense of colour and optical blending to the point where I made the best and most colorful watercolor painting in my class by marks. (im such a prat XD I got 100%) But you must understand that the man was seriously ill. And to do what he did. To create beautiful blends of colour and to paint the world in emotion is just so wonderful. You cant judge that. Skill aside, some people strike a chord in everybody. Just because the non artistic public promotes him does not mean based on them we should consider him a Lou Reed or untalented sod. Many artists made works for the public as well as themselves. So why should we be complaining about this man not being as skilled as Da Vinci or turner and yet receives gratitude which you deem unnecessary. If you were a visual art scholar you would find that other visual art opinions would be more politically important than the general public who for the most part would have no authority in art because they have not studied what makes works of visual art in all the spectrums of the mind. ( I have no opinion on who should be judge or jury in the art world because they are all very biased, its only opinion) But He was him. He painted like no other. If you asked Rembrant to pain his image he could copy it, but he could not paint like him. Get what I’m saying? I would stand by him not as an artist but as a human being. Free and wild as the unlimited reaches of our minds. Which leads me back to before. Not all artists need to be as skilled with merit as turner. Many have chosen to break off from it and create what they love, not the perfection of skill. and they let others opinions be secondary. For that desire for skill perfection is another form of art entirely. It does not dominate all. I can't truly say what art is as a whole and neither can you. So as long as effort is put in and a passion exists, neither of us can say anything. Only our biased opinions. One that I try to avoid.

I doze off sometimes when I type so some things may or may not connect or be completely explained.

Cheers.

Bruce said...

it *is* remarkable how clichés reassert themselves despite disavowals. why does it matter that van gogh was "seriously ill" and unknown? it doesn't matter that titian or rubens were seriously wealthy and famous. does an artist get credit for being sick, poor and ignored, instead of being healthy, rich and famous? where does that value system lead us?

the more important issue is this emphasis on "he was him ... free and wild." actually, no. van gogh took on painting the way most people take on homework ... diligent, plodding, repetitive, overserious. read the letters.

far from being a "master of color" (another cliché premise), van gogh memorized a few complementary color formulas handed down from academics like chevreul and applied them in the most laughably literal minded and routine way. he doesn't converse with color, or explore color, he lays it on like spackle.

and speaking of spackling, run your eyes over that sunflower painting above and tell me about its wonderful sense of color. the point is absolutely not about "skill perfection" (another cliché premise). the point is about art, and whether marketing myths have any part in it.

of course, nobody wishes ill on dear dead vincent, and you're welcome to queue for three hours to stare at his impoverished and relict works if that is what it takes to "stand by him as a human being". be sure you buy the catalog too. that purchase alone is probably sufficient to ensure that vincent's fame rings eternal among the wild, free, sick and poor who are the real artists among us.

will that be cash, or card?

Anonymous said...

Picasso or Andy warhol were waaaaaaayyyyyy more overrated.
Should never of been given the accolades or coverage
bestowed upon them.

Sibsy said...

I agree that Van Gogh is probably as famous as he is due, in part, to his tragic life story. But I wouldn't say he is overrated as an artist.

I don't know every Van Gogh painting (and the sunflower one sure isn't my favorite) but I know if I walk into a room in a museum and there's a Van Gogh there, that is the very first place my eye will go. I've stood before his paintings, heart arrested, before even glancing at the name. Now, I like many artists quite a lot, and I think some have "technical" skills that might be better, but I don't think you can beat Van Gogh for instant, visceral, emotional impact.

Technically speaking, you can't compare Van Gogh to a Gauguin, or a Renoir, or a Da Vinci. Why would you? They are clearly coming from different contexts, and pretty clearly had different intentions in their paintings. Was Manet, with "Olympia," going for an anatomically representational nude with clean lines and supple blending? Warm skin and the most realistic silk sheets? Obviously not. Since he didn't use those technical skills, it doesn't mean he's "worse" than Titian with "Urbino." (It's an oversimplification of the argument, but just an example.) I would certainly allow that I don't think there are many people around today who have the training or skill to do what a 16th century Italian master could do. But they're not trying to, either. With someone whose style is so wildly different, I think trying to force technical comparisons is irrelevant.

Everyone has tastes when it comes to art. I love me some Manet, Vermeer, Zurburan, Marc, Cezanne (and yeah, Van Gogh)... I'll stare for ages at an Irish illuminated manuscript, or a Cretan wall mural, or daydream about lunch in front of a Dutch still life. On the other hand, I think Egon Schiele is gross, Seurat is boring, and Renoir had a sickly colour pallete (for the most part. I kind of dig some of his landscapes). That's just my taste.

But you seem to be arguing vehemently that it ISN'T a matter of taste - that Van Gogh is a fraud, and anyone who respectfully disagrees is ignorant, conformist, and leans towards cliche tastes. Whoa, buddy.

I have to say... as I was reading your post, the feeling I came away with was that you dislike Van Gogh - not because everyone likes him undeservedly - but because everyone else likes him, period. Did he go a little too "mainstream" for you, perhaps?

Again, it's totally fine to not like someone's style. But this "museum visitors are sheep!" rhetoric rings a little false. Disliking something just because it's popular doesn't make you smarter or more unique or extra-discerning. It just makes you a slave to culture in a different way. Like what you like, hate what you hate, but let other people do the same without weirdly accusing them of mass-consumerism.


(I guess I am ready to be accused of anti-intellectualism, now?)

Bruce said...

hmmm ... to the previous, i would say picasso and perhaps warhol are *overpriced*, which is different from being overrated. valuation in terms of money gets you into the whole koons/sherman/murikami thing of art as industrial product, which flies the flag of "what do i care what art is, i only know what it costs."

van gogh is symptomatic of the valuation of art as an expression of the human spirit getting sucked into the vampire gut of marketing. the price of his paintings is irrelevant to his reputation -- something you cannot say about that womanizing toreador picasso, whom we love for his bandy legs and bullying personality.

van gogh is symptomatic of marketing's boast to create all value out of itself, out of the mechanism of bullshit, and its promise to polish any turd into common coin or crown jewel, take your pick. even a turd like a van gogh painting.

Bruce said...

and to sibsy ... is this really what they are teaching at university nowadays? explaining to people what they *can* or *cannot* say, what is *fine* or *not fine* to believe?

if you knew how to read, you would address the several specific points where i claim van gogh's reputation is either undeserved or manufactured, and the direct line i draw between this poverty of merit and the overriding influence of marketing, aka bullshit, in his iconic reputation ... as in many dimensions of modern valuation and ritual obeisance.

you're mistaken: i don't judge art on technical skill per se. (da vinci was a clever technician but a ghastly artist.) art is a quality of performance that arises from the spiritual in the same way that weeping is a quality of performance that arises from the visceral. you learn to see fake art, without an intellectual mechanism or linguistic elaboration or the folderol of political correctness, in the same way you learn to see hypocrisy in people.

van gogh had a conception of art as a form of career that required study, hard work and lots of practice -- that is the core of his "artistic vision". dutiful to his vision, he built himself a cage wheel and ran on it every day. he suffered, he died -- by suicide or accidental shooting is unclear. but no matter. marketing came along, wrapped him in a crucifixion myth of neglect and suffering, and the martyrdom legend was born -- the book, the film, the fame, and of course the posthumous gush of fortune.

marketing will continue to turn the crank on its profit hurdygurdy, and profit will squeak with the same impoverished music as the little gerbil spinning its little wheel. that is the awakening that each of us must come to as an individual: the realization that the queue, the crowd, the reverence, the reputation, are all manufactured, miraculously, from myth.

Gary said...

Hiya Bruce

Wow, what a great blog.

Re: Van Gogh, I couldn't agree with you more.

My immediate reaction when I was exposed to Van Gogh's work in art college was that my lecturers were trying to sell me snake oil and I immediately balked at this type of proselytism. (Suffice to say, this didn't make me popular with my lecturers, Bruce!)

I still feel that way to this day.

The whole industry that's developed around Vincent has quite a propaganda machine, doesn't it? (as some of the comments you've got on here prove)

Oh well...!

Thanks once again for an amazingly engaging and articulate blog entry.


Cheers,
Gary

Anonymous said...

A big thank you for your blog. I have not studied art but i know what i like and every time i would see a van gogh i just could not see why he was regarded in some quarters as the greatest artist who has ever existed - unfortunately, i could never put my thoughts into words, and one would have to be careful what one said as if you said you just did not 'get' van gogh, you would be laughed at and told you did not know what you were talking about. what i do know is the great marketing swindle, and the art world is perhaps one of the most efficient exponents. How could we lesser mortals argue with such 'experts' for example the Wildenstein dynasty! Anyway, I digress. A marvellous blog abd more power to you - the voice of reason.

Anonymous said...

Some people can't think for themselves. Van Goh is interesting and fun, but nothing as special as he is built up to be.



Anonymous said...

Thank you!!! :-))))

Anonymous said...

thank you Bruce. I just came back from my first van gogh exhibit and came away with the same impression as you. One painting actually looked like a poorly done paint by number kit. And I agree. Sometimes the paint looks like it was put on with a spackling knife and not blended.

Unknown said...

I agree wholeheartedly with your analysig of Van Gogh, both as a fabricated myth and as an inept artist. Howevever, you also said Da vinci was a ghastly artist, and I was wondering why exactly is that. I understand his fame as a painter is way beyond his actual achievements, but the word you used to me seems a little overboard. Could you clarify on that?

Anonymous said...

The problem I have with the debate is that everyone seems to see things in black and white. My own subjective take on Van Gogh is that he made some amazingly powerful paintings, and some amazingly amateurish paintings. I'll agree that he is overrated, and that there is a strange marketing hype built up around his tragic life that colors the way people view his art. Putting all that aside, some of his work is quite wonderful.

I have been fortunate to see 70 - 80 of his paintings and drawings in person. About a dozen of which completely floored me. There's a self-portrait from 1887 which is utterly haunting. That one painting says more about the troubled soul of the artist than all the books, movies, and marketing about him ever could. (And here the mythos of the "tortured artist" is not just marketing hype, it is the subject of this painting. A painting of a human being suffering through something inexplicable. There are also several paintings of his which I found laughably bad and thought smugly to myself, "I can do better than that".

Bruce, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading through the handprint website and the wealth of information it contains. It seems rather obvious that you are a very "left-brained" person. It also seems that Van Gogh was probably a "right-brained" person, so it makes sense that you can't see past the sometimes clumsy (though usually emotive) application of paint, and the often (but not always) simplistic color schemes. Van Gogh, viewed from a technical point of view, was not a very good painter, but that's not what his art is about. Its about the freedom of expression, in search of something. And yes, as you mentioned he studied art like a kid diligently doing homework. But when he was in front of his easel (especially during the last year of his life) some other force was moving him than the one moving him while he was writing his letters to Theo. He may not be as great as some people argue, but besides paving the way out of impressionism and into expressionism, he did create at least a few great artworks.

Bruce said...

i'm delighted to encounter an opinion formed, as mine is, from actually standing in front of 100 or more of van gogh's drawings and paintings.

i decline comment on the whole "left brain, right brain" carousel because, after all, it would just be that left brain talking, right? but i get your point that, basically, i'm not a "feeling" kinda guy. before you close that book, however, i'd ask you read my two postings under may, 2010, to see how i respond to art and talk about it -- when i like it, and why.

until then, i'm curious what exactly is meant by "the freedom of expression, in search of something"? or, "some other force moving him" in front of the easel? i accept such sentiments in the generous spirit of "i'm sure you could be clearer about what you want to say, if you took the time."

aren't those sentiments part of the marketing mythology? in fact, to understand perspective, van gogh built himself a little frame divided by wires, and copied clumsily, wire square by square, the framed landscape. read in the letters how he talks about color design with simple textbook concepts. consider that the finest praise he could make to theo about a drawing is "i finished it in under an hour." does that seem to you like a mind seeking "freedom of expression"? isn't that an excuse for a hand that simply couldn't feel sensual about paint? don't the little hatchmark brushstrokes feel more like embroidery than sonnetry?

the deep issue with all of van gogh's work is that he is one of the first casualties of the modern art marketing juggernaut. review the comments above, and you'll perceive how difficult it is for people to approach and talk about van gogh's work without resorting to the large arsenal of clichés in seeing and saying that have been deployed to sell it for over a century.

i have to ask again, why is a tortured soul more interesting than a sublimely happy soul or a bodger artist more interesting than a master craftsman? aren't fretful souls and careless craftsmen really the most common and unremarkable people of all? and isn't the fact that it seems just a wee bit callous or "unfeeling" to say that part of the premise on which marketing can build its kingdom of pretense?

perhaps that is the point. the marketing juggernaut, in its early years, hit upon the marketing concept that would pave its career through the 20th century: "here, bodgers and weepers, is a man who sees as you see, feels as you feel, and even paints just the way you would paint ... if you took the time."

hannuhoo said...

Dear Bruce and fellow travelers!

Yes, artists often are unhappy creatures and may be that's what makes them tick. So, may be it is with this fellow van Gogh. He was unwell somehow. A countryman of mine, a doctor even wrote a book of Vincets illness. There he compered him with the american composer Gerhwin who had a tumor in his brain. The doctor, Kivalo was his name, thought it quite possible that this tumor could have liberated extra creative powers in already gifted people. He had other examples of similar cases. So, he thought, the behavior of van Gogh had many of same symptons. OK.

I myself have dual feelings about him as a person but I do praise him as a painter. So I have been wandering what is it that you, in many ways a praiseworthy man, don't 'get' him. Well, strictly taken, it's none of my business otherwise but one thing. But, you are, thinking of your work and blog etc. a man of influence. So I say to other passers-by that in this detail 'van Gogh' Bruce has something personal against him, ageinst his way of painting. No insult here! People just are different. Bruce has done a great job in his writings and is a fine craftsman.

But, practically speaking it can not be just a whim that so many, propably the majority of modern first class painters and artists regard Vincent van Gogh as one of the great ones. So, please be free to be your own mind in this subject.

Thank you Bruce of your great work and Good Luck in Life!

zenif3 said...

I came across this post googling for Most overrated paintings. I was expecting to find the Mona Lisa, but it surprised me to find Van Gogh on many lists. And this is why:

I'm an ignorant person, and I think that this ignorance sets me on neutral ground. I walk through galleries or museums and if something catches my eye then I care about who painted it. Then I spend some good time staring at it, getting close and far, walking away, then coming back to see if I'm impressed still. This is, for example, how I discovered Renoir, Rembrandt, etc.

So no hype in me liking Van Gogh. I'd seen some of his paintings here and there, never considering it one of my favorites, not even enjoying looking at any of his paintings. I wasn't moved by them, at all, ZERO. (I considered Monet to be my favorite).

Then last month I went to France, d'Orsay (they had the Van Gogh exposition). And oh surprise, he IS good! I only liked some of his paintings of his last 2 years. Yes, just a few, but how much I liked them! Even the ones I never liked seeing on calendars and stuff really talked to me!

And don't tell me that I should see Van Gogh through an educated eye, scholars know too much but contribute too little (what has any scholar done other than books? I think people loose focus when they study too hard something that is not meant to be studied but enjoyed. I agree that understanding methods, rules, etc. enhance the experience, but there's a balance often forgot, and why do I say it's been forgotten? Cause outstanding works are not produced, just studied! -if you can't do something better than what you say you understand, do you really understand what you say you understand?-).

Conclusion. Maybe he didn't contribute with a huge number of awesome paintings (who did anyway?) but if you take him out of history the loss would be noticeable, which would not happen if we did the same to many other painters.

Bruce said...

zenif3, your way of taking in gallery paintings is very similar to mine, except i sometimes get down on my hands and knees to use the reflections from overhead lighting to study brushwork. i don't do this with a van gogh, because he first of all makes every brushstroke plain, and second because it might be misinterpreted for genuflection.

i think you should put aside claims of ignorance or fear of the accusation of ignorance. the point i have been making all along is that van gogh is not evaluated with naive eyes but eyes polluted by marketing hype and claims by "experts" for his "influence" or "greatness".

unfortunately you conclude by asserting that "taking him out of history" would create a noticeable loss, which is exactly the claim of his influence that i have been arguing is irrelevant to evaluation of his paintings as paintings. it also presumes an expertise about art history or cultural influence that you claim you do not have. when you go further, and venture that "people lose focus when they study too hard something that is not meant to be studied" you finally do proffer opinions that suggest you don't know what you're talking about.

i don't reason from hypothetical worlds in which van gogh does not exist because they are arguments based on fiction. we have only one world, this one, as evidence, and in this world many creative early modern artists never saw paintings by van gogh and were not influenced by him if they did.

did van gogh paint some interesting, affecting paintings? sure, why not? but the bulk of his work is appallingly bad, and has been spackled over by so much art crit marketing bullshit that it is difficult to see with unbiased eyes. do any of his works rise to the stature of "outstanding"? maybe, depends, why not? but nothing that justifies the christlike personality cult and adoration of his lightstruck daubings as holy relics. the keyword here is *overrated*, and the specific claim is *most overrated*.

you seem boxed in by the presentation that you are ignorant, nevertheless you like van gogh, you won't be bullied into not liking van gogh because you're not all high falutin' and expert. i don't see how that brings you in dispute with me.

my claim is that van gogh is an art marketing profit center (as i'm sure you experienced in the crowds and retail offerings at his exhibition); that his reputation is an art marketing triumph; and that his corpus of works, shabby to begin with and diminished over the century by the consequences of his inept workmanship, is entirely disproportionate to his continued reputation.

i encourage you do two things. one is, by all means, to try to see more of van gogh than one exhibition. get to know as much of his work as you can. i would ignore expert opinion as such, but learn the answers to any specific questions the actual works put in your mind.

second, i encourage you to take a calendar or catalog or postcard into the exhibitions, and hold the reproduction up to the actual painting. if you find, as i'm sure you will, that the colors have been "corrected" and "improved" to make the painting look better than it is, then you will have the first clue to unraveling what is really the substance of the van gogh legend. and, who knows. with time, after balancing what you see in the gallery with what is reproduced and discussed in the books, your opinion of van gogh may end up being not much different from mine.

Bruce said...

to hannuhoo ... i find it difficult to take seriously the ad hominem that i have "something personal against van gogh", although i guess that english may not be your native language and therefore you don't mean that i have some grudge against van gogh as a human being, but mean that my dislike is a subjective judgment on biased evidence.

both ideas are flatly wrong.

i explicitly wave away as irrelevant every biographical aspect of van gogh. i don't care if he suffered or not, or was insane or not, or had a tumor or not, or was a good person or not, or killed himself or was shot by schoolboys. *none of that* has any bearing whatsoever on whether or not this object hanging on the wall has certain qualities. *all of that* has quite a lot to do with the marketing hype and the van gogh legend, all the bullshit rolled up over a century of art market lucre. and to the degree that you cannot talk about van gogh without bringing those issues into the discussion, or cannot look at a van gogh painting without out those issues in mind, to that degree you confess your inability to look at a van gogh painting as a painting, for what it is, and admit you've surrendered your mind to the reputation that people have put there in place of your own judgment.

so much for my possible prejudice against van gogh as a person.

i explained elsewhere, and here repeat, that i have personally stood in front of pretty much every van gogh on public display in any of the major touring exhibitions mounted since 1968 (at the LA art museum), and every work on public display in the major galleries of LA, chicago, new york, england, netherlands, france, germany, italy, switzerland as circumstances arranged, either as a loaner, an item in permanent collection, or a touring show. point is not that i have seen every work, but i have seen a lot. no digital enhancement, no burbling audioguide superlatives; just the works, me, and a one to two meter separation.

so much for biased evidence.

here is where you, not i, veer into subjectivity. i ask how you know that "the majority of first class artists" regard van gogh as "one of the great ones", or if you just venture that as your personal opinion. i have studied the lives and work of many modern painters, and i don't recall van gogh floating to the top of their hit lists.

anyway, here are *my* opinions: first, if you made a list of the top ten artists as the source of revenues in art publishing, art exhibitions, and art auctions, van gogh will be near the top, if not in first place. fortunately, my opinion has a basis in fact:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_paintings#Van_Gogh_and_Picasso

second, if you made a list of artists with the widest influence in the history of painting, in terms of one artist influenced by another -- as giotto did before cimabue, or rubens did before titian -- then van gogh would be very far down the list, probably below 50th place. if you look into it, you will find that the direct and documented influence of van gogh on another artist is, in fact, rare, limited, and parcel of post impressionism as a heterogeneous movement.

third, my claim is that the discrepancy between the first number and the second number is larger for van gogh than for any other painter in the canon.

fourth, my claim is that the discrepancy is almost entirely due to the art marketing of van gogh as the new testament god of a demotic art mythology that has its roots fundamentally in the nurturing soil of profit, art profit, the profit of selling people goods at false value.

so much for subjective judgment.

Unknown said...

Is Van Gogh overrated? He is rated as highly as he should be given the amount of love people have for his work. I suppose I can understand that not everyone will like a particular artist's work. Still, anyone that can't enjoy Van Gogh, I feel sorry for that person. Some of his work is mediocre, but the style he developed at the end of his life is not. For me, some his paintings are the most beautiful works of art that I have ever seen.

I am unhappy with the assertion that art must satisfy a technical qualification to be considered good. It's backwards. What is plain and simple is that his work is absolutely beautiful. Perhaps you should stop thinking about it like some robotic art critic, and see it for what it really is.

Anonymous said...

I am glad that you sir were able to logically explain why Van Gogh sucks. Its like it gets shoved in our face that he was great and we should like it, be inspired by it, ect.

I think Van Gogh is the Justin Bieber for the rich and educated. He didnt sell in his own time for a very good reason.. Only after he dies do the stuffy richers immortalized his garbage.

Is justin Bieber any good? The millions of screaming girls says yes, the rest of the world says no. Its the same syndrome but for the rich and educated.

Its not just Van Gogh either, happens all the time. Hype syndrome.

john nemaric said...

Yep it's the emperors no clothes thing. When you have amazing painting duplicators who can paint identical copies of the masterpieces, so close that experts have trouble picking them ( and then have to rely on provenance to sort them out), then it proves that the life led, has nothing to with the painting.

Having said, he was pretty good. The greatest - well it's all very subjective. Just for the record Gaugan and Lautrec both appreciated his paintings.

Bruce said...

i'm doubt that the falsifiability of an artwork or the ready duplication of an art style is a useful measure of its quality, and of course citing the opinion of Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec (note spellings) is just another instance of letting an exported brain think for your own.

my question is: how many van gogh paintings have you actually seen -- up close and personal, in the flesh, with your own eyes?

a large part of the van gogh myth rests on manipulated images and small format, false color reproduction -- which incidentally destroys the visceral impact of looking at his scabby, fretted and amateurish painting surface.

Anonymous said...

What a insane conversation. This is a conversation that misses perspective. He may not even be know had he produced these works at a different time. He changed or at least was a part of changing what was considered art or good art.

That is one point. The other is that a lot of his work had a strange energy to it. For instance the painting of the madhouse garden. Even if someone captured this type of energy today, they may be relevant, but to do it when it was considered garbage makes it much more incredible.

Bruce said...

it's true that van gogh might not be known if he painted, say, in the 16th century. but the true interest of your first point is in what's called reception. in fact, i don't know of an inclusive historical study of the van gogh reception, looking chronologically at critical opinion, sales, collectors, galleries, valuations and monographs that have built van gogh from the 19th century eccentric into the juggernaut "product" he has become today. being played by kirk douglas in the biographical film based on the biographical best seller can't hurt.

your other point is more elusive, because it implicitly asks "what is art?" but it's also suggestive that you loop via your example back into van gogh's biography (his bouts of madness). this opens the floodgates of pathos, pity, romance, hyperbole and fabrication that have floated his reception for over a century.

my reformulation of your comments would be: would we know of van gogh today, or appreciate his "strange energy", without all the marketing that has been used to build his reputation, without the mythic biography that has provided the stone and mortar for the construction?

Anonymous said...

So you are asking if he would still be so famous if he wasn't so famous. It's like trying to figure out if Tupac is considered one of the greats because of his work or because of how he was marketed. A Tupac being a great example as an early influencer of rap and a fan of Van Gogh himself.

Bruce said...

it's interesting that you appeal to an artificial circular argument to deny that we can first identify a famous person, then determine how and why they became famous.

reception history is not an arcane practice, and it could very easily sort out the relative importance of artistic originality, influence on other artists, salon reception, critical opinion, market valuation, elites, money, art auctions, fictional biography, mass image manufacture, media acclaim and blockbuster museum shows. more accurately than, say, in the case of picasso, because van gogh had absolutely no choice and played no role in the matter (being dead, and despite that pathetic backstory).

i've just provided a topic outline for such a study; i've made a constructive suggestion that could test my claim that van gogh is first and foremost a marketing success story. you seem to feel something is missing from the comments above and this missing perspective is, apparently, that we just take fame at face value. but isn't that the essential premise of the "van gogh product" marketing strategy?

Anonymous said...

Van Gough overrated ???!!!!
ahahahahahah ..what a pile of garbage.
A critic wanna be over here ...VG painted with his heart and sole and the simplicity of his work is WHY he is considers genius. thanks for the good laugh.

Mike Rodent said...

It's funny how "reified" gushing reverence for VG's every creation has become.

Many of the things people say about him, such that he supposedly for the first time brought feelings directly to the canvas, thus overturning what "every" artist prior to him had ever done, are demonstrably untrue. You have dared to go back and point out something which was said and thought by contemporaries (who didn't rate him), to wit that his drafting skills leave a lot to be desired. Does that matter? No, not necessarily.

But I'd compare him with someone like Turner: are we really saying, by the way, that Turner "never brought feelings to the canvas" and "just painted like a camera"? But, strange to say, you will hardly ever seem human figures in any of T's paintings. And having seen this one, http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-garreteers-petition-n00482, in an art gallery once, I can say without much hesitation that, great as he was, Turner could not paint figuratively. Which limitation, if such it be (and I think it is one), constrained his art into particular avenues which we now rightly say prefigured Impressionism and much 20th Century art.

Similarly, I think VG's limitations as an artist made him take up a new avenue, and in some way it may well be that to be lacking in recognised qualities forces an artist to find their own "new way". The result can be good, bad or indifferent, or something which you can call all 3 or none of the above, often depending on your mood and generosity.

The previous commenter said that VG "painted with his heart and sole". I didn't realise he was quite that revolutionary: Jackson Pollock (wow it's suddenly getting very fishy) eat your heart out.

Bruce said...

you've raised some interesting points, but i question the concept that turner labored under "limitations" rather than something more like lack of interest. in his time landscape figures were generic staffage, and one could buy crib books of engravings of stock figures in stock poses to copy. why bother with anything more complicated, when your main interest is light and landscape? (yes, i know about the carnal sketchbooks. different topic i think.)

it's also interesting to consider the claim that van gogh "brought feelings" to the canvas. as you say that's obviously false (the vigor of titian's portraits, the sadness in rembrandt's "bathsheba", the joy in hals, the spirituality in vermeer, etc.), so the question becomes what kind of feeling van gogh introduced ... on that point all the folklore about the poor suffering artist struggling in obscurity to realize his vision is probably a good clue to the answer.

an even more interesting question is whether it was really van gogh or the fictions of reputation marketing that brought those feelings.

art history seems complex to me, and for every artist breaking new ground stylistically, you have new technologies like cameras or lithographs or industrial pigments, new social trends like anarchism and socialism, new art markets, salons, shaping expectations and novelties.

Mike said...

You're a man after my own heart: +1 for Tiziano di Cadore/Titian in particular... yes, I'm a massive fan (worth 20 Canaletti any day) and +1 again for Vermeer.

I had to google for these Turner erotic sketches you mention... although I have a very faint feeling of deja vu from somewhere... OK fair enough: probably lack of interest, as you say, although painting faces and figures is another story to just sketching bodies...

"Reputation marketing"... yes, as you said a year ago in this thread, untwining the "real" VG from the powerful Hollywood myth-making purveyed courtesy of Vincent Minelli and Kirk Douglas is no doubt impossible to do. I'd be really interested in knowing what the general public's and contemporary artists' views of VG were *before* that film came out... in fact I think I had a bit of a google and there's an interesting bit in Wikipedia which says that his "first peak" was before WWI, when people were impressed by ... his letters. Hmmm...

Bruce said...

the film is based on the 1934 biographical novel by irving stone, his first, which i enjoyed reading in my teens. if i remember correctly, the novel is based on the van gogh letters in the german translation. in fact the case can be made that van gogh's popularity was actually due to the letters, and in no small part to stone's book, and the art was then harmonized with the portrait they created.

http://vangoghletters.org/vg/publications_1.html

CiprianHanga said...

Wow, there are so many comments here I haven't got the time to read them all but I only want to add something that was very telling to me in art school: people that had the most amateurish style of drawing/painting all loved Van Gogh and always used him as an excuse to defend their mediocre style. Instead of working harder they almost always came with the same "Van Gogh wasn't understood in his own times as well", as to say they might also be some geniuses that we fail to understand, but the posterity will. I didn't get into any arguments because I saw the futility of it, but I always said in my mind "well, good luck in making a living then".

Bruce said...

ciprian, i've heard that anecdote anecdotally; you're the first to relate it to me from personal experience.

van gogh has had many claims about him made since his death, in itself the premise for a very sad book. the truth is that he was not misunderstood but just ignored, by everyone except his brother -- that is, until his letters were published posthumously.

napoleon was once the emperor of france; revolutionary, dictator and lawgiver, brilliant general and scourge of europe's old dynasties, the symbol of the demonic power and genius of a great man. all that was about two centuries ago. today, if you ask anyone to name some basic facts of his life, you are likely to find people who can't think of any, not even one.

time eats all things. it happens to everyone, even napoleon, and it will happen to me much, much sooner than it will happen to van gogh.

CiprianHanga said...

I know the feeling, Bruce! As far as I'm concerned, what posterity will think about me doesn't interest me in slightest. I do art only because it makes me feel happy. And I try and work hard to get better at it also because it makes me feel good about myself if I do get better.

What matters is your life as it unfolds, day by day, and how you feel about it. Posterity? Who cares, you're not going to be around anyway. Be happy now, let other worry about what's in the distant future - that's my motto, and creating art does make me happy, even if it's not "fine" art.

Cheers!

Ricardo da Mata said...

Yes, he is!

Sterling Jacobs said...

Van Gogh, one could argue has been overly exposed and overly hyped and overly marketed. He may not of been a great artist but he certainly wasn't a bad one as you seem to assert. He developed his own way of expressing himself that was him, which I greatly respect. I put more emphasis on individual distinctiveness than I do on technique. To clarify, I don't disregard technique. I just don't think it should dictate and define what "good" art is, which is subjective in and of itself. However, he is underrated as a writer and a thinker. I feel this is an area where he greatly under appreciated.

Sterling Jacobs said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

I agree. This man Van Gogh had a ghastly life, Right! But that makes no sense to praise his work on that basis only. He tried to become a good painter to find a way to master his style and technique but he failed or may be he had not the chance to continue his career. Almost all his works are awkward in a bad way! Yes we have awkward in a beautiful style too!! Just look at toulouse-lautrec. His works are beautifully awkward !

Anonymous said...

I dont get art, and never have..music, like Mozart and Bach, now that's art to me..pure genius.I see no difference between a Van Gogh and those 3-D wall art pictures you could buy for $5 and if you let your eyes relax while starting at it, you see dinosaurs in the background.or cars.or pyramids.or fish. but The Scream by Munch might be the single dumbest piece of art, ever.or starry night..seriously, people go to museums drink wine eat cheese and say ooh starry night its so nice?no it's not, it's a painting by a no talent bum..
Jimmy Page with a guitar is an artist.Carlos Santana is too. the Mona Lisa is ugly, what's the big deal? then the Warhol soup can paintings..pure garbage..he can't draw anything better than a soup can?!

Anonymous said...

Here the thing about some great art. It's the thing that will be argued about forever. Some great art is great because it transcends physical dimension. The art isn't about the paint but the painter. Van Gogh projected his beingness onto his work. The phase "His art lives on the canvas" applies. When I view his art I can FEEL it, almost as if I can feel his presence in the picture. His work is alive. This is something you either get or you don't. Feeling it can't be taught, nor can you talk someone into feeling it. You either feeling his being, you're either feeling the life the art projects or you aren't. Words fall short.

Bruce said...

you're emphatic on the importance of feeling, but don't say which feelings abide in Van Gogh canvases, other than "alive". my wife is alive and a scorpion is alive and i have quite different feelings toward them, so "alive" is a word that omits feelings rather than explains them. odd, considering it's the feelings that matter.

"feeling" can also indicate, for example, that "i feel an electric shock." those are sensations, and i assume you don't mean you feel a Van Gogh canvas the way you feel ice or fatigue.

this was discussed in the comments above -- what, exactly, is the unique Van Gogh feeling? i maintain the paintings are technically crude because the feeling itself is impoverished ... "he was able to do so much, despite his end as a struggling artist and mental patient!" well, yes, but i look with my eyes.

you need to see a lot of Van Gogh paintings, and see the actual paintings and not the print or digital reproductions, to "feel" my astonishment that his paintings are viewed so reverently.

Unknown said...

Hello, Bruce.

Watching "Loving Vincent" recently renewed my interest in Vincent's life and I ran into this post. I wholeheartedly agree with you in pretty much all accounts. As a representational figurative painter struggling to get better at what I do, I never understood or "got" Vincent Van Gogh's art.

However, I still respected Van Gogh for his "persistence and diligence," the qualities I hold dear as both as a painter and a human being.

My question to you is: Knowing what you know of Vincent Van Gogh, do you feel that he, like most of us painters today, "struggled" greatly to become a better artist? Was he "persistent and diligent" in his pursuit of becoming a better artist? Or did he "compromise" for the sake of convenience, quick sale, or laziness?

Thanks,
Jon

Bruce said...

jon: to start, it's useful to distinguish the "struggle" to paint well from the "struggle" to overcome a mental illness or defect. i search for, but cannot find, testimony of "struggle" in (for example) giotto, titian, raphael, rubens, velasquez, turner, sargent, picasso, to name a few, and omitting the thousands of extremely skilled and anonymous artisans of all kinds who, for example, have populated the Victoria and Albert museum with an astonishing gallery of silversmithing. the idea that art either requires or is elevated by "struggle" is a modern misconception that has a woozy view of the facts of life called study, practice, discipline and persistence, which i suspect all the mentioned artists applied in unstinting measure.

"he tried really hard" is no substitute for "he succeeded", despite modern educational dogma to the contrary. i understand the comments that lavish praise on van gogh's bodgerism as a kind of feeling, i disagree that it is a feeling worth esteem, much less adulation verging on reverence.

there is no equivalence between character and painting. it's misguided to speak of courage, decency or kindness in painting, all important attributes of character, so you must distinguish with the "persistence" necessary to become an individual and the persistence necessary to master a skill. it's a confusion carried by words: a sweet tennis shot, a sweet smile and a sweet candy bar are the same thing.

certainly van gogh didn't "compromise" in his surrender to idiopathy, and there are many modern artists, such as agnes martin or cy twombly, widely esteemed for doing the same.

the vernacular makes a distinction between "struggle" and "struggle with"; one implies effort against difficulty, the other suggests inability to overcome difficulty. van gogh struggled with painting.

Unknown said...

Bruce,

I suppose the "struggle" I was talking about in this particular context was the "struggle" to "paint well." The point I was making was that despite the fact that I personally don't "get" his art or appreciate it, I can at least acknowledge, respect and be empathetic to his "struggle" to become a better artist as a fellow artist and a human being. No, it still doesn't change the fact that we probably won't be talking about Van Gogh today had it not been for the clever marketing ploy who wanted to make profit off of this tormented soul, but I have to give him credit for giving his honest effort (i.e. "struggle") to become a better artist in the best way he knew.

Bruce said...

well, true as far as it goes. but the title of the post isn't "is van gogh the most overrated human being -- ever?" and, as stated in the lede of the post, i just "look at what's on the wall."

here's a useful counterexample: chuck close is a widely respected modern artist whose works hang in many major galleries. he also became paraplegic (nearly quadriplegic) mid career and paints portraits despite prosopagnosia. he has had to struggle mightily to overcome those handicaps to continue working, and even in full health created difficulties and obstacles in order to pursue his art.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Close

ever hear about "chuck close's struggle to become a great artist?" ever see a documentary called "loving chuck"? probably not. what you hear about and see on the wall is his innovative and technically amazing art. "struggle" is not necessary to sell it, much less appreciate its merit. with other artists ... not so much.

Unknown said...

In so far as staying true to the original topic, yes, Van Gogh is "overrated" as an artist in my not so humble opinion. I don't know if he is THE most "overrated ever" though because I see pictures that are far worse than Van Gogh's worst painting that are still selling for millions just because those paintings bear certain "artists" :cough: sellouts' :cough: signatures.

Nope. Nobody made a movie called, "Loving Chuck," probably because he is too level-headed, and didn't leave 400 lb of letter to his brother talking about his art like Vincent did. No transcripts ripe for a tragedy or drama. Just an artist producing art. Boring. Not marketable.

This "Loving Vincent" is just latest iteration of one of the longest money making scheme off of a dead artist who can't speak for himself. A shame.

Unknown said...

Great. Another person of inadequacy offers their criticism of a great, to be edgy.
Im so impressed.

Bruce said...

amusing. another sarcastic ejaculation offered in place of reasoned rebuttal. conformity is so vindicated.

Unknown said...

I'm not sure if that last post was directed at me or not but here it goes.

I understand art, for the most part, is subjective. However, In my not so humble opinion, there are certain aspect of art that are "not negotiable" and thus, objective.

Full Disclosure: Because I live in the world of "representational" art, there are certain things I look for and expect from an artist to master (to the best of his/her ability of course). Draftsmanship (i.e. accurate drawing), Reasonable Value Relationship, Reasonable Color/Temperature Choices, Variation in Edge, Paint Texture, Brush Work, Composition and Variation in Resolve based on focal point or hierarchy of importance etc. etc. These are the things we artists have been, yes, "struggling" with for centuries. Furthermore, these are only the "minimum requirements" because even if you have all these aspects in your painting, there is no guarantee that they will work together to give the viewer an experience that is visually lyrical, even "magical," which is the ultimate goal of an artist in my opinion.

None of the paintings of Van Gogh tells me that he has mastered any of these aspects. I'm sorry. He just didn't have it. I don't know how else I can tell you this.

Now, if you throw Van Gogh into "Abstract Art" pool (another topic that I'll be glad to talk about but not here), then, please ignore my comments because in "Abstract Art," none of the aspect I mentioned above matters. However, from what I understand about Van Gogh's life, it would be reasonable to assume that he tried his best to be a "representational" artist, no?

Anonymous said...

You are a talented hack. You are only making a fool out yourself by acting this pompous. And yes I know this will be moderated away. But you will see it.

Bruce said...

how funny. first, you hide in the bushes of anonymity. then, from your little burrow, the shout rings out: "oh, i know you'll try to erase my words from your mind -- but they will have stung, all the same!"

really? aside from the feeble ad hominem, you don't seem to have anything substantive to say. and that speaks for itself.

Anonymous said...

Bruce, thank you. How great to know that people are still engaging with this post after many years since it was published and that you're still responding to comments.

I'm new to the art world and know almost nothing about it. I had just returned from a trip to MoMa in NYC and became curious as to whether anyone else has ever had the same thoughts that went through my head the whole time I was looking at Van Gogh's paintings there. I found you. And you have articulated what's wrong with the whole Van Gogh worship thing in a much more sophisticated way than an art noob like me will ever be able to.

I come from a different world professionally, and let me tell you, we in that field have our share of overrated "experts" and "scholars" whom you absolutely cannot criticize. It's disheartening—sickening sometimes—to see the hagiographic writings about them on the part of the blind members of the press and the undiscerning public (with no real expertise to differentiate solid skills from hypes) The herd mentality permeates every segment of our society, I guess.

Please keep doing what you do. You give me hope in this world.

Bruce said...

thank you for your appreciation. i don't disagree with what you say, but i hope you don't get bogged down in the disheartening and sickening implications.

the herd, the experts and the parasitic market media are an intricate topic and not easily handled in a reply. they are facts of human nature. the more important facts are that you have an individual karmic path and considerable freedom to chart a personal direction.

Max Moura Wolosker said...

I so agree with you. Once in Florence I had the opportunity to attend an interactive exhibition of the works of Van Gogh, in which his paintings were projected while his virtues were extolled. When the time came for "Room in Arles", the narrator said that "with this impossible perspective, Van Gogh wanted to demonstrate blah blah blah" and I immediately thought to myself, "This is bullshit. The truth is that he simply didn't know how to make a perspective".

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the read Bruce. Though I study something creative, apart from some basic color theory and the "rule" of thirds I don't really know anything about art. So I'm forced to judge art by whether I like to look at it or not. There's too much of what I like to go through, but for instance surrealism is right up my alley, I particularly like the Dutch painter Carl Willink.

If you think Van Goghs do look good, more power to you, but I don't see it. It just looks bad to me. If I had to explain it, I'd blame lack of detail, crooked perspective seemingly for no reason, those goddamn lines everywhere, jarring colors, visually uninteresting scenes (there's never something interesting to look at), lack of "balance" if that makes sense, for instance Starry Night.

It is kind of funny though, the way everyone seems to agree he's a genius. Why? Because he read about orange and blue being opposite colors? Because he "innovated" upon pointilism by using stripes instead of dots? Geniuses are usually people who are capable of great things. I'm just not sure what great things van Gogh accomplished. It's worth noting by the way that those Japanese style paintings he made were copies, not inspired-by, but simply copies of original Japanese works.

I do think some of his flower paintings have a certain aesthetic, though that may largely be attributed to the flowers themselves. One of his self portraits has a good looking face but then he gave up on everything else (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vincent_van_Gogh_-_Self-Portrait_-_Google_Art_Project_(454045).jpg). Then there's his Wheat field with a threatening sky, which invoked feelings in me of fear and loneliness, because of the dark sky, creepily unidentifiable crows and twisted pathway, good job Vincent, that painting is quite nice but I wouldn't charge millions for it.

Anonymous said...

I partly agree in the over rated aspect of Van Gogh and his work. However I feel you are wrong in a lot of your criticisms and the fact that you compare him to other artists in the way you do is ludicrous. Each artist has their own purpose, and despite Van Gogh's early intentions to sell his work, this was clearly not the case towards the end of his life. He traded works with friends and used his paintings to pay off debts. Nobody can know what his true purpose was.
And as for your comment about his lack of form and capability in painting figures in his last paintings, this would surely be down to the fact that he painted those figures from memory, as influenced by Gauguin. And this technique of painting from memory was used by Van Gogh in order to express more emotion in his work.
Yes I know you posted this in 2013, but I feel you still deserve some backlash all these years later for a badly informed piece of writing. And as for your comment on his lack of lights and darks, your hardly one to comment. Your profile picture, which I PRESUME to be a self portrait completely lacks any notion of what your criticise Van Gogh for. And to be frank, your painting is below any standard which would allow you to criticise the work of Van Gogh. thanks

Gregory said...

Vincent van Gogh's "genius" is two-fold:

1)He painted reality as perceived through a mirror, darkly (i.e. his personal psychosis)

2)He translated gradations of his felt psychic pain into a multiplicity of hue.

Even as a small child I found his work sickening and difficult to take in.
I don't tend to bother with it at all in adulthood; it is certainly not amongst any personal list of "must see"

In my opinion, he leaves an interesting psychological document if not an important artistic one.

In my opinion, Picasso (overpriced) maintains a strong hand throughout his work even though artistically he 'falls' for me after his cubistic forays.

In my opinion, Warhol (overpriced) remains the great 20th century American moralist. His painting never "drops" because it never has that far to fall.

Thanks for your blog posting. I found it when googling "van gogh not that good"

Anonymous said...

Haha.. This is probably the funniest piece on Van Gogh I have ever read. To guys like you Bob Ross is probably a great painter. The "right perspectives" and neatly finished and so on... Thanks man, you made my day :-)

Anonymous said...

Somebody I love and respect said they love Van Gogh, and that anybody who is not worthless likes Van Gogh.
So...I like Van Gogh, because I was told to. And the person who told me to, was told to by someone else. And that person felt that anyone who doesn't like what they liked are dumb and bad. And this blessed lesson has been passed down to me and my ilk. And you are dumb, and bad, and a poopy head booger-face. If you say you like Van Gogh, then I wont feel personally insulted anymore, because I feel that you disliking what I was told to like, is equal to you insulting people I love and respect. I can't separate the two. And there's more of us than there are of you - so, that means we're right. Because we win. (Win what?) IT.

I believe that liking Van Gogh = smart and important. Anybody who doesn't like Van Gogh is not smart and not important, and it is my duty to shame them, insult them, try to humiliate them, and use condescending bully techniques, especially trying to do a imitation of a 18th century condescending pompous posh British gentleman or noble lady.

----------------

BTW, I agree with you. And I think Van Gogh is absolutely terrible. The Lascaux artist was a glorious and religious individual. Stan Lee is a great artist. 2pac was a beyond awe inspiring genius. Mozart is fun, but Metallica and NWA can be proven to be superior in the grand scheme of the world, humanity, history, and even to any civilization - human or otherwise.

Archie said...

Well everybody is entitled to their opinion but 99.99999% of the worlds opinion doesn’t matter. The gallery owners, museum curators, art historians and the people who can actually afford to put their money where their mouths are, they are who really count.
Like it or not they are the ones with the refined taste.
The buy and sell art world lives in a bubble and it is a very exclusive one at that level.
Asking the public’s opinion of Jackson pollock or Tracy Emin is like asking a dog to critique a steak cooked by a top chef.
If it was up to the crass public like us the Met would be full of hyper realistic paintings, manga art and Frank Frazetta.
Love all art passionately.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you on almost everything but only up to the point where you quoted Picasso about the supposed light reflection on the vase as Picasso is also one of those completely overrated artists. Infact as an artist not much better than van Gogh. In Holland we have a saying "whatever value a nutter puts to an object" and this is right on the mark coming to 'artists' like van Gogh and Picasso. Their works truly look like it could have been done by freewheeling children. Yet the entire world values their scriblings and stripings as the most beautiful works of art. Conclusion: either I am blind or almost the entire art-world is blind.

antony said...

Hurray!!! I thought I was going mad. I've just spent 8 hours in art museums in Amsterdam and seen loads of amazing art, lots of mediocre art and not a small amount of rubbish art. I don't get Van Gogh. The best of his work is mediocre (most is rubbish) compared to the amazing art I saw. I totally agree that crowds make the fame. In the Rijksmuseum everyone was hustling to see the same paintings as everyone else. The best Rembrandts I saw were the tiny little sketchings that everyone walked straight past...

Anonymous said...

Most of it is pure nonsense. Hype about nothing, mostly made famous by people with far too much money to waste or people who are afraid to go against the grain. I've seen better art on public toilet walls.

Unknown said...

No hes right Van Gag was an amature and is over rated. He paints like a 5 year old. His art sucks.

Peter Selgin said...

Contrarian opinions like this are bound to provoke and win approval for their novelty. But oh how wrong you are on every point. You ask for evidence, and yet what better evidence can there be than the work itself? Leave alone the fact that —with the help of the impressionists and pointillism—he invented a whole new approach to painting, Van Gogh was a supreme draftsman and an exceptional colorist. How to "prove" such things to someone who can't see them? I don't know that I can, anymore than I can "prove" to you that a meal prepared by a master chef tastes good in your mouth. However I can say, as someone who has practiced visual art his whole life, who has made a good part of his living as an illustrator, graphic designer and painter (among illustration clients: The New Yorker and other magazined), that the man REALLY knew how to draw. The calligraphic reed drawings that you so blithely dismiss as lazy and haphazards are in fact impressive for the very reasons for which you dismiss them: for the variety of textures and colors that van Gogh achieves with his language of dots, dashes, etc.. Indeed, despite being monochromatic, his ink drawings are almost as colorful as his paintings (compare the ink drawing of the fishing boats on the beach with its painted equivalent). That van Gogh's myth obscures his true values as an artist is undoubtedly true; but that isn't his fault, and nor does it by any means diminish his technical virtuosity and originality. In fact the opposite of what you say is true: if anything the unappreciated mad-genius "myth" obscures van Gogh's real achievement as a technically superb, revolutionary artist who worked extremely hard and was as passionate, serious, and devoted as any artist has ever been or will ever be. And the results show it. But again, if you can't or are unwilling to see it, no one can make you do so. But then that's your loss.

Unknown said...

Supreme draftsman? Van Gogh? You cannot be serious. Everything else you said about him we can say “it’s a matter of opinion”. But to claim Van Gogh to be a “supreme draftsman,” makes me wonder if you know the definition of draftsmanship. Take the worst painting of Alma-Tadema and take the best of Van Gogh painting you think showcases "draftsmanship." Then, compare which one gets the proper perspective.

Peter Selgin said...

Based on your example of Alma-Tadema, you equate good draftsmanship with the ability to render classical subject matter in a realistic style. This van Gogh didn't do, nor did he paint "classically." On the same basis would you say he's not a superb painter? I'm guessing that you wouldn't, since it would make you seem very foolish. Well, the same logic applies to his drawings, which as any artist will tell you—and as van Gogh himself learned early on—drawing or draftsmanship is the foundation of good painting; one cannot possibly be as great a painter as van Gogh and NOT be a superb draftsman.

But even putting the paintings aside, if I'd never seen a single one of van Gogh's masterpieces and only had his drawings to go by, still I would know at a glance that he was a superb draftsman. I would know because, having drawn my whole life (for many years I made my living as an illustrator; my work appeared, among other places, in The New Yorker, Forbes, Gourmet, The Wall Street Journal, etc., and being a good draftsman myself (I'll let you judge for yourself the vaildiity of this claim: (https://www.flickr.com/photos/46362485@N02/albums/72157711402732408), I can say without hesitation that his drawings are masterful. Have a look at some of van Gogh's reed-pen landscapes, then show me an artist who has done as well or better in that milieu (Rembrandt comes closest, but even Rembrandt is not "better"; on this Picasso and I both agree).

Is my judgment a matter of opinion? Sure, but there are informed and uninformed opinions.

Peter Selgin said...

I replied earlier but am not sure it went through. I suppose if you're able to dismiss van Gogh's paintings as less-than-superb then it's possible—if not reasonable—to do likewise regarding his draftsmanship, but they can't be reasonable dismissed independent of each other, since drawing or draftsmanship is the foundation of painting; one can't exist without the other. IF van Gogh was a great painter, he was a great draftsman, too. If he was an inferior draftsman, then he must have been an inferior painter. But based on the example you give of Alma-Tadema, that your notion of great draftsmanship—and perhaps of great art generally—is strictly classical (some would say reactionary); and that an artists' ability to render realistically is the point. To that all I can say is that as someone who studied art has made much of his professional living as an illustrator and painter (you can see my work online: look up "Selgin" and "paintings" or go to Flickr or my website), I know something about good drawing. No, van Gogh couldn't draw like Alma-Tadema; but could Alma-Tadema draw like van Gogh? And of the two whose work — whose drawing — was more innovative? Art historians don't always get it right, but in the case of van Gogh one doesn't even need the historians to see what an impact his work has had and how original it was or how fresh it remains to this day—whereas today Alma-Tadema's work is pure kitsch. Maybe you think van Gogh's style of drawing is relatively crude. I would say that it is bold. Look at his reed-pen drawings, at the landscapes in particular, and then name one artist who could better with pen and ink on paper (Rembrandt, maybe). I'll tell you this: I, who am not a bad draftsman myself if I may say so, WISH I were one-tenth as good as van Gogh. If I were to trade my technical skills for anyone else's, I would choose his.

Unknown said...

I still question your definition of "draftsmanship." How is Van Gogh a "superb draftsman" when I see total disregard in proportion, alignments and perspective in his drawings? And you are quick to call Alma-Tadema's work "kitsch" while defending Van Gogh's obvious lack of draftsmanship by saying his drawings were "innovative," and "revolutionary" as if being a good painter/draftsman is about being "innovative" or "revolutionary?" We are not talking about latest cell phone technology or politics here, are we?

Draftsmanship, with regards to art, to me, is an acquired skill like any other. But it does take years of practice and patience to develop. When I see Van Gogh's drawing or painting, I just don't see any mastery in draftsmanship at all.

Now if you are talking about what kind of emotion you feel when YOU see Van Gogh's drawing or paintings, then that's a different matter. After all, I doubt two people will react to a stick figure the same exact way. So if you feel that his drawings or paintings are that "superb," and Alma-Tadema's work is "kitsch," OK fine. But I hope it's not because you see decent perspectives or proportions in Van Gogh's work.

Astrid said...

Hi
Although I know that technical-wise, Vincent van Gogh wasn't the best painter, what I love seeing is the effort and patience he put into learning how to become at least better at it. Besides, the movements in his works, that are created by the maybe sometimes "hasty-looking" brushes in different directions, have always intrigued me.
However, I do understand your disappointment about the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Being an admirer of Van Gogh's paintings, I was actually quite disappointment about the museum when I visited it last year.
For a look at some of his better paintings I would recommend going to the Kröller-Müller Museum at the Hoge Veluwe (about 1 hour from Amsterdam, in the middle of a beautiful national park where you can grab any bike and cycle and maybe even spot some deers). Their collection is, in my opinion, much better (even though it is a bit smaller). Some works I loved were the Olive Yard and Cipresses by night.
I hope you give it another chance!

Anonymous said...

I agree, no wonder at the time he only sold 1 painting. In his time he was considered mediocre at best. Speculating at his state of mind, maybe his depression roots from his realization of his mediocre talents. Now he is considered great because he is dead and art is like any other commodity cost depends on supply. All this said art is in the eye of the beholder.

Peter Selgin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
van Gogh Fossil Paint Collection said...

I have to say - I LOVE your refreshing take on my ancestor's work. THANK YOU a million million times for sharing your work. I am so very grateful and I know your work will become the primer for every watercolourist to come! (You and Cennini!)
Kathy van Gogh

E.W. said...

The equivalent of todays period dot on a white canvas. Imo

joyce a coley said...

van gogh paintings are just plain ugly,

Anonymous said...

I saw a post on twitter of a Van Gogh painting, which prompted me to search the term: "am I the only one who does not like Van Gogh?"
I agree with the blogger's opinion. "Heroes" (some actually call them gods!) of the "fine art" world are chosen rather arbitrarily.They are almost always of European descent, long dead, and male. If one disagrees with the "god makers", she/he is often deemed primitive with respect to taste and education. Basically, the Emperor is not only naked, but is grossly obese, and smells rather badly.

I find it interesting that Bouguereau was brought up, mockingly by one respondent. Bouguereau was an incredibly skilled artist, and it shows in his work. If Van Gogh, or Matisse, or Diebenkorn for that matter, could have painted like him, perhaps they would have. I find it interesting that people who claim talent and skill either do not exist, are irrelevant, or both, are people who are do not produce work of any note. I have been making pictures with pencils, brushes and cameras for several decades. It is rather easy to spot the "art gods" that did not have basic drawing skills. Picasso is an exception to the rule; he was as good a draftsman as Dali, yet chose to do...what he did. I may or may not like cubism, but cannot deny his skill, as is evidenced by his blue period paintings, and even works done prior to said period. I cannot say the same about Van Gogh. Nor Diebenkorn.
I would be interested in seeing the work of the people who disparage Bouguereau... The idea that one "feels something" when viewing a Van Gogh, is a rather weak argument. Making art "whatever the artist says it is" conveniently absolves one of honing and perfecting one's craft, if one bothers to practice a craft at all. Yes, art is subjective, but what passes for art these days is simply material selected by a mutual back-patting society, and presented at such.
Duchamp, Warhol, and many others produced the artistic equivalent of bovine excrement, yet the makers of the revered and writer's of the books on art agree, whether sincerely or not, that what they did is significant. When I view a Bouguereau, I marvel at the execution, the sheer beauty of the work, and envy his facility with skin tones, realistic as well as idealized. When I see a Van Gogh, and I have seen quite a few in person, I marvel that his work is revered by the art world. Seems to me that many people are too afraid of being ridiculed by bucking the trend, as it were, and calling a spade a spade. Cheers.

Bruce said...

i agree with many of your points, although i don't believe art comes down to canonical skills.

warhol, for example, was among the first artists to seize on modern image reproduction technology and advertising assumptions as an artistic medium in itself: that was his unique skill and something i find very important and interesting in his works. you can't judge that kind of thing as a form of drawing.

i was brought back to this blog by your comment, and was disappointed to find only a single comment to my two "travelog" posts (above), which lay out pretty clearly both my way of looking at art and what i find valuable about it (and where bouguereau gets brief shade). the fact that my comments about van gogh have gotten outsized attention is just more proof of the point i was making that fame and merit are completely unrelated.

bouguereau is a useful example. you say he had technical skill (and i certainly agree), and you merit the skill by how easily you might reproduce it yourself. skill, in this view, is what you or i can do that most people cannot. in that view, rolling your tongue is a skill.

there is a charming passage on this subtext where james elkins describes the difficulty he and a student had to reproduce the peculiar prickly, pocky impasto of a late monet. to them, it was a cryptic achievement of maestro skill; for monet, it's just his fat hand shoving paint around. the man and the paint become inseparable; to imitate his painting you may as well try to fit into his pants.

with bouguereau the problems are different from van gogh, and have to do with his gender attitudes, his bourgeois visual world, his market sensibility, and his fundamentally vapid way of treating subjects as props, genre roles or saccharine caricatures. he painted dutifully for a clearly defined, historically contingent coterie of art collectors -- and the market has moved on. i can't really put a merit on his paintings, because i don't understand their attraction. but yes, lovely use of paint.

artists need the discipline to learn common skill, sure, but they also have a temperament that leads them to value some skills more than others, and to refuse the bridle on certain individual traits. the "skill portfolio" isn't a measure of merit or training only but also of individuality and cultural moment. much of what we can achieve in art by being individual isn't a skill, but just "how we are." we can surmise, from his paintings, that bouguereau was a very good boy and charming at dinner, but wholly a careerist in his craft. van gogh seems to me to be a man who believed art was about straining very hard to be what you are not; marketing posthumously has crowned his aspriations with success and from that judgment spins a whole mythology.

but these are digressions. i leaned into an "art critique" of van gogh only to document the undeniable and huge disparity between the merit of the actual physical works and the outsized, overblown, meretricious and absurdly counterfactual marketing narrative and market valuation that has parasitically attached itself to the poor failed preacher who decided art too could be a holy mission. and, fact of human nature, people seem to love someone who is willing to climb up on a cross, especially when they make the cross themselves and can hammer in their own nails.

my topic was how that spectating impulse can be turned to profit, how the profit becomes its own imperative and takes on institutional and cultural life of its own; and, once it has a life of its own, how far it is able to grow beyond the subject of its attention and distort, through airy artspeak and photoshopped reproductions, what is actually available to the eye. marketers call it fame, and fame has very little to do with merit because it can be manufactured -- and manufactured in order to obtain a profit.

Anonymous said...

"Lovely use of paint" sounds like a "left handed compliment". Referring to it thus, belies a disdain for the honing of one's craft (my words) that your initial post seemed to reference. Dismissing the work of Bouguereau (perhaps I have misunderstood?) as such is like saying Hendrix made a lovely use of strings. As for the rest,it seems to me that this sort of over analysis is the very problem to which I spoke and speak; perhaps I misinterpreted your position. To the point: the European view of the "fine arts" has always been consumed with and driven by the cult of personality. Quite frankly, most of the "gods" of western art were simply accomplished craftsmen, (in the early days, one had to be very good at one's craft), who were lucky enough to know the right (read wealthy) people, be invited to the right parties, and make the right friends. Currently, facility with the materials and mastery of any process is completely beside the point. Just do something shocking, and get it noticed, and suddenly your are a De Kooning: producing absolute trash that a pseudo-intellectual crowd validates. Anyone not with the program of considering the artist's angst, the times, the history, is deemed simply too dim to get it all. The history surrounding the artist's environment, her/his (although it is almost always his) history, familial background, are absolutely not essential for enjoying a work of art. The Western European perspective on the arts always assumes the artist is more important than the art created by the same. This is why Warhol is considered a great artist. What he did was silly. Spectacle. Not great art. A con. Van Gogh made some paintings that can be nice too look at, if you like that sort of thing. It is no deeper than that. There is no genius there, only the adulation of an establishment who decided long ago that he was one of the chosen.

Vincent said...

Who ever wrote this or whoever thinks Van Gogh and Picasso are overrated is a complete idiot who deep in their hearts wish they could have a great legacy that stands the test of time. Whenever any person reaches a point of major mainstream acclaim in any discipline there’s always that small group of jealous nobodies who want to knock them down a notch. “Often those that criticize others reveal what he himself lacks.”

Bruce said...

this is characteristic of the secretly fearful: why go into the substance when you can just fling ad hominems?

certainly the van gogh marketing juggernaut depends on loyal consumers like these.

blue_waters said...

I understand Van Gogh; and his paintings, and his life and struggles, plus illnesses and tragic suicide (I've not watched the movie or read his biography).
I do not understand money and marketing, nor do I understand any organised or systematic way of observing or studying anything, including art.
Art is just a way to cope for some; what good may come of it, or how good it is, is irrelevant.
For himself, his paintings were the best, and he gave it all he could; this is what I see, just my humble opinion.
Well, I've never seen an original, so you have that. But I can surely paint one stroke for stroke.
However, the thought of him being overrated did cross my mind and so I am here.
Thought processes are strange things.
I'm not for or against any opinion or person.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience.
Just passing by, may god bless us all.

Bruce said...

i'm a little unsure what to say to you, blue underscore waters, except to compliment your bluesy vibe. c'mon over to this table with me, we can order drinks and you can talk while i admire your legs.

"you understand van gogh." wait, what? has he been talking to you or something? if you haven't read his biography or watched the movie, how do you know anything at all about him?

"i don't understand money or marketing." well, uh, isn't that, uh, you know -- the theme of the post?

"i don't understand anything in an organized or systematic way." uh, OK. so you mean things like "home address" or "bank account" don't mean anything to you?

waiter, hold off on that second drink, the lady and i need to have a short chat here.

so, how exactly do you understand things -- i mean, in your admittedly uninformed, unsystematic, disorganized way? does it involve your medications, perhaps?

"art is just a way to cope for some; what good may come of it, or how good it is, is irrelevant."

wow. this is what i really appreciate about genius. it can take two stale clichés of art lore — the fingerpainting art therapy view of art, the art-for-art's-sake view of art, and by putting those two nonsense clichés together seem to snap away any value in art at all, for any reason. i mean, isn't that what "irrelevant" means?

"he gave it all he could; this is what i see, just my humble opinion."

OK, look. here's how it works. if you offer your opinion, it's not humble. humble opinions are requested, then asked to speak louder.

you don't have humble opinions. in your own uninformed, disorganized, unsystematic and nonsense spewing way of getting on with things, you're actually quite tactical. "he gave it all he could" is the barest cliché of art known to humankind: the cliché of the doting mother praising the incompetent child. even she — even she, the doting mother, looking at her child lying exhausted on the floor — even she can only muster, "well, he tried then, didn't he?"

"well, i've never seen an original ..."

yes, i've already heard your standards for knowledge.

"but i can surely paint one stroke for stroke."

well, uh, i'm sure you can, i'm sure you're good at it, why, i'm sure we're all good at it ... waiter, check ... we're all great painters, stroke for stroke!

"however, the thought of him being overrated did cross my mind."

yes, of course, the thought crossed your mind so you typed it into an internet search engine and, as you say, "and so i am here."

where's an uber driver when you need one? no, twenty minutes is not OK.

"thought processes are strange things."

oh boy, aren't they though? i think my thought processes are -- well, what am i saying? where's that uber?

"i'm not for or against any opinion or person."

we've already established that you have only nonsense opinions to offer without knowledge, order or system. your ride is here. driver, she'll give you the address.

"just passing by. god bless us all."

religion. i just knew it. isn't religion the origin of all nonsense ideas that have no factual basis or logical explanation? doesn't that mean there's a religious mindset — an uninformed, disorderly, erratic mindset whose humble opinions are volunteered — a religious mindset toward art? that you can view van gogh as a kind of religious relic?

... and now that i think about it, isn't that what all the marketing hype around van gogh is really about? nonsense opinions without any factual basis or critical scrutiny? and isn't that what this post is actually about?

smokedsalmoned said...

When cheap printing processes came in to being allowing the poor and middle class to have a "mona lisa" in their homes, painters had a dilemma. Art was more available to the masses and it certainly appears that snobby museums, art galleries and patrons were not real keen on that. Photopraphy was also a challenge in terms of realism.
That appear to have driven the need for art to change into something involving not just an explanation of what the realistic image was about as in the past, but into something that involved having to explain why it was good despite not looking realistic.
This excluded the uneducated and kept the whole thing exclusive.
Non representative art that shocked, that had to be explained and or had a great story behind it (suicide, poverty, ears cut off, insane asylums) all bumped up the interest and the price.
Art is now about selling a story. It is no longer about your painting being about something and telling a story, you have to convince others it is good, meaningful.
Art today is a con game and Van Gogh and the story around him is one of the biggest cons of all.
Van Goghs work is successful but take away the hookers, the ear, the suicide, the sanitorium etc and it would be trash to the vast majority of people and so I think it is trash, my eyes say trash.

Anonymous said...

You hit the nail right on the head. Art supply companies love Van Gogh because they know he used handfuls of paint on his canvases. I even recall that he would "experiment" with unprimed canvases. I saw an unprimed canvas of a chair he painted, and the paint was still ungodly thick. That has to be the most wasteful and ignorant "experiment" I've ever heard of, and of course he was financially dependent on his brother while doing this. The man was a complete ingrate and it's no wonder he couldn't sell a painting.

Unknown said...

I love Van Gogh's art. To me, he was one of the best portrait artist's of his time. Google his self portrait dedicated to Paul Gauguin or his portrait of Trabuc done at St. Remy. And people think Renoir had superior technique, haha! As far as draughtsmanship, check out his reed pen drawings from Arles. You really believe these are without merit? Well, to each their own.

Bruce said...

i love the Van Gogh rear guard, you guys are plucky and you stick to your guns and stand by your man. -- the Arles "drawings"? my god, those things are crewel on steroids, agnes martin a century before agnes martin. do you know agnes martin, have you seen her celebrated minimalist works? there's the essence of Van Gogh drawing for you, st. agnes saw the dim principle in vinny's compulsive, joyless, weirdly textureless textural "drawings" and propels it into pure abstraction, massive canvases and butcher paper wrought with idiotically redundant tiny pencil or pen scratches, just itsy bitsy, row after row after row in row or grid formation. van gogh loves the whole row on row thing, rows and rows to make grasses, or wheat, or night skies. but he cannot make lines, he can only use shortness. the idea that a line could scrawl out of a thumb and go up the arm to the armpit, the way they do in Schiele, or swoop up and down and all over the way they do in Twombly -- such things absolutely do not occur to Van Gogh, ever, for any reason. it's like he had a line agnosia or a kind of marking palsy, looking at his drawings is like listening to a woodpecker. the reproductions available online don't represent the larger body of work, which was genuinely dispiriting for me to see at the London show. but you don't need to look at many drawings, this compulsion to shortmark with pen or brush also appears in his choice of drawing subjects, such as flowery fields or grassy harvests or ruchy lawns or brittle trees, where he would seem to have permission to let his hatchlining run amok in the service of tonal variation or textural imitation. but his landscapes are a tactical choice, they are where his hatching compulsion can go to appear nostalgic. and even in the diligently done pieces the lines have a crudeness and lack of flavor about them, like the seeds you see on top of a bagel; his boast to his brother was that he could rattle one off in an hour. as for the portraits, his portraits of Roulin appear not as the impressions of a human being but as the realistic painting of a encrusted postal officer head, something Damien Hirst might jigger up with a skull and rubies; something Arcimboldo would make out of paint chips. and there's another good thing about landscapes, landscapes are where lines go to hide. -- for the rest i won't debate renoir against van gogh with you because renoir is another artist for whom line is a hazy concept. but take his heavily brushmarked portrait of the philadelphia "madame Renoir", which beams out with a human cheer and health and reciprocated good feeling; and look at the way the paint is cheerful to be about the image making, and yields to the gentlest folds and shadows of the homely attire. this seems to me something that compulsive markmaking is unable to achieve.