DRAWINGS

We're pretty sure that little Buffy is part mountain goat, the way she literally flies up onto the back of the couch.  Her stay ended late yesterday afternoon when her parents returned from their 2-day venture.  It was difficult packing up her load of toys, but that's part of puppy sitting.  Along with every hello there has to be a good-bye. 

Van Gogh's drawings are as intriguing as his paintings....

Landscape Near Montmajour with Train - 1888

This drawing was created while Vincent was staying in Arles in southern France.  He made a series of drawings around the hill of Montmajour.  He described this drawing tohis friend and fellow artist Emile Bernard:  "....an enormous stretch of flat country, a bird's eye view of it seen from the top of a hill -- vineyards and fields of newly reaped wheat.  All this multiplied in endless repetition, stretching away towards the horizon lie the surface of a sea, bordered by the little hills of the Crau (*ancient confluence of the Durance and Rhone Rivers).  It does not have a Japanese look, and yet it is the most Japanese thing I have done:  a microscopic figure of a laborer, a little train running across the wheat field is all the animation there is in it."  One has to look closely to see the train in the center of the drawing.  

Vincent placed particular importance on drawing; he was a self-taught artist, and sketching was an essential means of study.  In 1877, he wrote to Theo, "as I sit here I cannot help making a little drawing now and then, like the one I sent you recently. "  This brief statement is testament to the fact that Van Gogh's extensive written notes to his brother were dotted with diminutive drafts and sketches.  It was as if his drawings kept him company during his otherwise solitary life away from his family. 

Garden of the Hospital, Arles - 1889
Pencil, reed pen and brush and ink on paper 

Vincent is treating us to a glimpse of his world.  His works reveal the aspects of the everyday that fascinated him, even this peek nature's beauty outside his hospital room.

If you have a touch screen and enlarge to closer look at the small pen and brush strokes, it's absolutely mind-boggling the intense work he put into each and every detail. I especially like the colonnade that wraps around the back side of the drawing. 

Pollard Birches and Flock of Sheep - 1884

I wouldn't have noticed the flock of sheep on the far right, had the title not indicated it.  Van Gogh loved pollard trees with their gnarled trunks.  In a letter to his brother Theo, he compared a row of pollard trees to a 'procession of orphan men.'  What he meant was that nature had a soul of its own.

What are pollard trees?  Pollarding is a pruning technique involving the removal of the upper branches of a tree, which promotes the growth of a dense head of foliage and branches.  Learned something new today!

When I look at this drawing, I can't help but wonder if there's a hidden message.  We see a woman on the left side, a grouping of trees in the middle, and a man tending a flock of sheep on the right.  Might this mirror the fact that there was always something standing between him and the woman he loved.  Just a thought.

This study has taught me to really look at paintings closely and to examine all the elements of a painting.  It helps to know a bit about the artist, because they paint their story instead of writing it.  🖌