Paper on "Mme Ginoux", Van Gogh
Painting: Vincent
Van Gogh's L'arlesienne, "Mme Ginoux"
By: Tarek Fahmy
I decided to pick
L'arlesienne because of it's brightness and the intensity of its colors.
Out of all of the other paintings in this room this one stuck out the
most. It is said that Van Gogh painted this painting on the spot. He also
finished it in one sitting.
Van Gogh was greatly influenced by the Japanese prints that he and his
brother Theo collected. This painting exhibits fluid and simplistic contour
lines, flat contrasting color, and a plunging perspective that points
to the Japanese prints.
'L'arlesienne' demands your attention and forces you to examine it more
closely. The composition of the painting is broken up in flat planes and
the majority of those planes contain one color and it's shade. The personality
of every color is heightened by the strategic placement of a contrasting
color in the next plane. Dark contour lines are also used. All of these
characteristics belong to the 'Cloisonnist' style, a term that was adopted
for the Japanese influenced western artists.
The background is the brightest area in the panting. It consists of a
medium plane of yellow with subtle yellow tints interspersed throughout.
Some blues are also used because there are subtle greens in there too.
Van Gogh's brushstrokes are visible but controlled in a crisscross fashion;
it kind of gives the impression of straw (one of the few instances that
Van Gogh's brushwork seem to have a system).
The yellow background is contrasted against the blue plane of the shirt
and the most unsaturated area in the painting, the face. The color of
the face is somewhat of a brick red color. There is very subtle modeling
in the forehead and the cheeks, noticed only in extreme close-ups. If
you take a few steps back the face seems flat. Finally, there is a red
outline around the face, another Japanese technique that Van Gogh used
in a more subtle fashion. Moreover, the outline wasn't that visually strong
or prominent. In my opinion, Van Gogh deliberately mellowed down the colors
of the face to convey a feeling of sadness and melancholy. This emotion
is heightened because the hues of the surrounding and contrasting colors
are much more pure and bright
One of the planes that is strongly contrasted with the face is the neck
area, or the shall around the neck. This is one of the most modeled areas
in the painting; the colors are predominantly light green with a number
of tints. Again, this green and it's tints contrast with the mud brick
of the face and the yellow of the background. Van Gogh's brushwork in
this plane is slightly visible but not the characteristically violent
and energetic kind. Below this plane is the second largest area in this
painting, the shirt. The colors that are used are cobalt blue and black.
This area is very flat and the background is very visible. The shirt,
obviously, is contrasted with the green table. The table is very flat
and it is tilted in a diagonal direction; officially called 'Japanese
plunging perspective'. The green of the table contrasts with the blue
of the shirt, the yellow of the background, the brick-red of the chair,
and the books on the table.
The books could be used to explain this entire painting. They contain
most of the characteristics that are widespread throughout the composition.
Every plane that makes up sections in the book is contrasted with the
next via color. The first plane, the spread of the book, is blue yellow
with pure yellow on the edge that meets the dark blue shirt. The second
layer of the book is orange that contrasts with the first yellow-blue
plane and is also extended to meet and contrast with the green table.
The next area of the books contains unpainted canvas covered by a very
thin layer of yellow paint, another color contrast. You could say that
the unpainted areas on the canvas give the painting an unprofessional
and unfinished look. To me, it adds to the beautiful simplicity of this
work.
The last area that haven't addressed yet is the chair. It grabs your attention
because it is the only section in the painting with one of its planes
containing two strong and contrasting colors. I am talking about the back
of the chair; it contains orange and brick-red. These colors play off
of each other with the brick-red brightening up the orange and the orange
dulling out the brick-red. I don't consider the chair one plane. It is
composed of a number of planes that work with each other to give the impression
of a chair/stool. The vertical support of the chair is composed of three
different planes. It is also intersected by a plunging diagonal plane
that is contrasted by the green of the table.
What I love and respect about Van
Gogh's Cloisonnist style is that he didn't attempt to completely adopt
the Japanese techniques. He couldn't do that because he wasn't Japanese
and wasn't immersed in their culture. He didn't pretend that he was Japanese
and if he did his Cloisonnist style would have been forced and fake. Realizing
this point, Van Gogh adopted some of the Japanese techniques and ideas
and made them his own. Further, he mixed his violent and energetic style
with the simplistic, contrasting, and contour using Japanese style to
free himself from the burden of being and imitator. The result was greatness
and originality.
Van
Gogh.
November, 1888 (or May, 1889?).
"L'Arlesienne: Madame Ginoux with Books". Arles: New York, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art
"L'Arlesienne: Madame Ginoux with Books". Arles: New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Detail_1
"Wheat Field with Crows. Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum
