Maddison Wright
Intro to Art History
10/29/2013

Vincent van Gosh and His Influences

Influences are all around us whether through objects or people, they continue to change our ways and thoughts. Without influences our world would not be able to progress as well and art works, people, events, and many more would go with less appreciation. The famous painter and essayist Clement Greenberg states, “The superior artist is the one who knows how to be influenced.” This holds true to every artist through his/her works. 

An artist in particular who was greatly influenced and eventually even made his works brighter was Vincent van Gogh. Besides Jean Francois Millet, one of van Gogh’s greatest influences was a man named Paul Gauguin whom he met in Southern France at an art exhibit. The two traded art pieces and from there van Gogh persuaded Gauguin to stay in his “Yellow House” so they could continue to influence each other through their art works. In the beginning both painters used coarse canvas Gauguin bought, forcing them to grab a lot of paint onto their canvas and create thicker brush strokes. These two were working together great in that yellow house before van Gogh impulsively cut his ear off and threatened Gauguin with a knife. After this incident Gauguin quickly fled back to Paris. Though these two lost their good friendship they once had, van Gogh was inevitably influenced much by Gauguin and vice versa. Van Gogh’s paintings showed more free detail through his imagination rather than creating realistic pieces. This was due to Gauguin’s technique of remembering how places or people looked through just his memory, rather than visiting those sites. Gauguin was influenced by Van Gogh’s religious background, which then showed through his art pieces. He also starting creating brighter pieces with thicker brush strokes, just as he saw van Gogh’s works demonstrate. An example of one of Gauguin’s brighter pieces is an oil painting on canvas titled Arearea (in English meaning Joyfulness). The use of less dull colors first came with Gauguin’s view of van Gogh’s vibrant sunflower sketches and paintings, one of them titled Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers. 

Before becoming greatly influenced by Gauguin, Van Gogh was also very much influenced by the Impressionists. When he arrived in France, his brother Theo introduced him to art works by Claude Monet. Van Gogh was taken back in awe considering he had only seen art pieces of Dutch paintings and French Realists. He began to study these impressionist artists and saw how many bright colors they incorporated through their paintings. Van Gogh also observed the use of brush strokes broken up and saw a different style being used called Neoimpressionism (or Pointillism). At one point van Gogh was even influenced by Japanese prints and later makes his own Japanese woodcuts using the color palette he saw give life to the prints. 

Vincent van Gogh strikes us as a complete individualist yet everyone is influenced by something or someone, just as Van Gogh was influenced by Paul Gauguin and an important movement. Observing other artists’ works most likely made van Gogh a better artist; he continued to learn from other individuals and places around him.

Joyfulness, Paul Gauguin, Oil painting, 1892

A Basket of Potatoes, Surrounded by Autumn Leaves and Vegetables, Vincent van Gogh, Oil painting, 1885

Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers, Vincent van Gogh, Oil painting, 1888