van gogh museum amsterdam 20th may 2024

I spent a lot of time in the gallery and made notes in my sketchbook and took pictures on my phone. I found it really interesting to see other styles in van goghs work that id never seen before and also his focus on form as a draughtsman. Also found the exhibition to be really approachable and accessible with the text beside paintings and on the wall being a lot more informative than what ive found in other galleries. as well as this there were also things encouraging people to look at the work and suggesting things to focus on and question - like the rabbits i took a picture of and put on this post. in addition to this there was a little layout on colour theory and screens/computers to look at and read stuff on.

was going to try line up all my notes with the pictures i took but i think that'd be to difficult, especially on blogger...

Notes:

notes of notes:
- interesting how he had darker works i never knew of
- did a lot of works as studies.
- liked how double sided works were shown in the exhbition (there is some pics of this further below)
- oil paints looking like different mediums
- exhbition layed out well, by era and also lots of info about everythin.
- segment with selfportraits, curation makes it easier to draw ones own conclusions n comparisons etc

- thought about the use of mirrors for self portraits. A painting of a reflection.
- like the potato eaters pre sketch & writing around it.

- art as a skill / trade.  like the art myth book

- jean fracois millet, jules breton.

-presketches for potato eaters, v planned as a painting
- somber-ness and poverty

- skull painting was done as a study in art school. contrast life n death, cigarette also

- 'draughtsman'
- art as a practice
- other artists work in exhbition gave him more of a realness nd sense of time..van gogh to me seems to exist in his own bubble of art history...

- cafe table,, maybe done as sketch at first then painted lateR?

- yellow cover = french novel
- the langlois bridge 1888, the use of wet on wet, the outlines bleeding into one another eg blue going into the bricks
-complimentary colours, but also monochromatic eg the sunflowers

- look up colour etching  & aquatint
-helioggrauvre? photo gravure?

-paintings n depth of field

- gauguin bad vibes...
- georges lacombe red pines 1894-1895, use of underpainting, unnaturalish colours

- letters n information
- dark age of media

- cypresses &two women 1890, looks so lickable ?

Photos:

double sided work displayed like this

i liked the sketch of the man on the chair and also the presketch of the potato eaters.. I dont always do presketches but i feel i probably should... also like when art work has handwritten writing/notes around it.

i really liked the thinkness of the sea foam on this one as well as the texture in the sky

took a photo of the leaves in this since ive been trying to paint them, i thought it would be good to look at how different artists do it

more leaves, dont know what painting this is from though

I found this bit about the skull really interestin,,, id never thought of it as initially being intended as a study... ironically the cigarette brings some life / humanity to it. also goes along with the whole illusion / value of legitimacy idea ive had for a while - what makes something legit, the difference between a doodle and a work of art etc.

thought this was so cool!!

Never really thought van gogh would've painted something like this !

interesting that french novels were known by having yellow covers !

Thought the blue and red defining lines were yum

i think this is one of the many artworks in this exhbition that made me think of perspective in painting vs photography. definining lines are used in this painting in the foreground on the flowers and also in the background on the trees. i wonder how much photography and technology has affected the gaze of artists - as i think we often associate a background with blurriness... defining objects in a painting despite the proximity to the gaze is Something i think.. a sort of un realistic realism.?

took a picture (as well as a sound recording) of this view from the gallery. the window had some mesh over it which you can kinda see, but it was really bizarre bc i couldnt hear nothing from the street and just had the gallery noise.. was kinda absurd. cant really explain it, but it was quite calming.

no clue what work this is, but i liked the sky texture

like this show of wet over dry, also pentimento i think the word is? the use of these contrasting colours is also v v nice

Never heard of charles blanc's theory !! only goethe's tbh

colour etching and aquatint ! never heard of them b4 but love the effect

looked at odilion redon b4

thought the texture of the wall in the gallery was cool so took a pic lol

such a cool series

i really loved all these prints above and the hand drawn quality to them.

i liked the pastel like texture of this piece of work by emile bernard, who's work ive never really looked at before, and was surprised to see it was done with oil ! it also had such a matte texture to it, kinda like emulsion too i guess. additionally, looking at it now the contrast of the green/teal background and the red hair probably gives it some sort of pull to it as they are complementsry colours.

Another work by emile bernard i liked. again in oils, but this time looks very ink-y or watercoloury.

also made note of how the leaves were depicted etc, since ive been looking at landscapes as of late.

a frame within a frame. A View. this is one of the pieces that led me to think about perception and technology and how cameras have affected how we view distance, perception, and depth of field.

the colours!!! i also like how thin the paint is, with the canvas texture underneath.. art is strange bc i hate that canvas texture when im painting, but love it here.

some kinda bloody,melty looking flowers.

detail in distance of the image, again in terms of technology, we kinda i feel expect distant things to be more blurred...?

thought the last sentence was funny like duh

got told off for pointing at this work

another bit that i thought was an interesting aspect in terms of curation was this little station encouraging people to think about the work

nice use of colour and composition

one thing i noticed in this exhibition and also the rijksmuseum were how differently oils have been used as a medium.. effects wise they're quite versatile; from smooth and silky to a more dry pastel effect.

its funny bc i wasn't as stoked about going to this gallery as i was about the rijksmuseum, but i got a lot out of this visit.. van gogh is very popular so i think i assumed i knew It All.... idk