www.vangogh.co.za
I made this exciting discovery while attempting to understand why van Gogh would pay so much attention to detail such as colour and composition in all his paintings and yet some of his portraits appear to be "unbalanced".
While studying these "unbalanced" portraits with particular attention to
facial features such as eyes, lips, nose, ears and bone structure, as well as
clothing and background, it became apparent that these were not final
portraits.
Instead these were "studies" of the particular differences between
various types of people such as men and women, young and old, rich and poor,
various ethnic groups etc.
By studying the differences more closely van Gogh was better equipped to do final portraits with the accuracy and definition necessary to capture the true character of his models. This together with his unique style, in my opinion, enabled him to captivate the imagination of not only art critics and scholars but in particular the untrained art lover, thereby making his paintings the most valuable and generally appreciated worldwide.
There are similar "still life" paintings that also display this technique, defining the differences between e.g. fresh and wilted flowers, ripe and old vegetables etc.
There is additional evidence to support this theory in some of Vincent's letters to his brother Theo. He writes in one such letter 4 December 1888 at which time most of these studies were done, "Just now I am completely swamped with studies, studies, studies..."."Now nothing prevents us from having a good many studies labeled as such…." In March 1885 he writes "I work hard, and suppose that only one out of twenty studies I make is worth selling, though those few, either more or less in number, may be of no value now, they may be later on, perhaps."
There is still much to be discovered about this great artist and I hope to keep you informed of any further discoveries regarding his works. I have included in this collection only those portraits and still life paintings that, in my opinion, portray what I call the "Split Image Technique".
Because this is such a recent discovery I welcome any feedback on this subject and look forward to your submissions and response to this interpretation of these particular van Gogh paintings.
Kind regards,
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