Women of Van Gogh

Why do people make art? As surprising and diverse as the answers may be, one thing is clear: art is a way for people to express themselves. Art helps people bring out the essence and significance of things in their life – it comes in all shapes and forms! The categories of art include literature, visual arts, graphic arts, performing arts, decorative arts, music, and architecture. 

One of the most traditional of all arts has been the visual arts, oil paintings in particular. Western art has been broadly associated with oil paintings for a very long time; during the early 15th Century, Jan van Eyck, a famous Belgian artist, discovered oil paints after mixing linseed oil and oil from nuts with diverse colors! 

All the antique oil paintings describe ancient stories in captivating ways; they get their fame from the attraction they bring and because they’re so exquisite. The paintings that came out of the heart of renowned artists remain undeniably trendy. One of the most famous of these artists has been Vincent Van Gogh. This article will discuss this brilliant artist and his remarkably well-known work featuring women as the subject. 

What comes in Van Gogh’s Most Eminent Paintings?

Born on March 30, 1853, in the Netherlands, Vincent Van Gogh used art to stay emotionally balanced. He was highly impressed by Impressionism and tried to incorporate it in his paintings as his career as an artist was just in its earlier stages.

Vincent Van Gogh completed around 2100 artworks, with 860 being oil paintings and about 1300 of them being watercolors, drawing, and sketches. However, his most celebrated paintings have been Irises and Portrait of Dr. Gachet, as they rank in the world’s most expensive in the world. 

One of his painting’s recurring subjects has been women, as he does justice to his characters with the perfect strokes of brushes and proper usage of color patterns. Let’s portray some of these eminent artist’s paintings featuring women and delve deeper into the beauty each of them withholds! 

Woman Sewing

 Women of Van Gogh

Painted in 1885, this painting used the medium of oil on canvas and was created in Nuenen. It is said that Van Gogh decided to paint this picture before he made his masterpiece, Potato Eaters. He was confused between choosing daylight or lamplight lighting for his painting but ended up experimenting with all multiple interior lighting effects. 

He decided to paint the artwork with the figure against the light, and he mentions to his brother Theo that it was a ‘difficult effect.’ However, Van Gogh found the perfect combination of hues while achieving a strong contrast in his painting. 

Girl in the Woods

 Women of Van Gogh

Girl in the Woods was completed in 1882 and is part of the paintings in which Van Gogh has practiced Realism. The painting has been a brilliant adieu to his youth in the city of Zundert, where Van Gogh spent plenty of his time alone in the woods and utter peace. 

He has painted a similar artwork, Girl in the White in the Woods, with the same theme and color pallet, but in this very painting, the artist decided to have a different composition – a girl facing the viewers. The warm color palette of this painting has been intelligent in terms of usage, making Girl in the Woods one of the exemplary paintings of his time. 

Portrait of a Woman with Red Ribbon

 Women of Van Gogh

Painted in 1885, Van Gogh painted this portrait of A Woman with Red Ribbon as he attempted to find inspiration after returning to Paris. During his time in Paris, Van Gogh was quite impressed by the portraiture and colorist palette of Frans Hals; he based his experimental portraits on Frans Hals’ techniques of animated brushwork and juxtaposed colors. 

The woman in this painting was from a café-concert, a motif in regards to the modern city life of Paris. However, Van Gogh didn’t use this model in her specific social setting or with any background at all. 

She is neither portrayed in a sentimental or expressive pose like the women from Van Gogh’s Hague period – the artist applauds this woman’s beauty as he paints her, with no other hidden context or meaning. 

Peasant Woman Peeling Potatoes 

 Women of Van Gogh

Just like in many of his paintings, Vincent Van Gogh liked to portray women engrossed in their household works and chores. In his paintings, he would often show women shelling beans, sewing, spooling thread, and preparing food in general. 

Van Gogh’s Nuenen interiors paintings of peasant women portrayed a certain timelessness and reflected the 17th Century Dutch paintings’ influence. He liked to convey through his portraits that women of his time were best in the solitude of their own homes – that was quite the case as depicted in his multiple paintings/portraits on the matter! 

The Bottom Line

Vincent Van Gogh – a post-impressionist painter whose work has been notable for its beauty and depth as it influenced 20th-century art with his talent and expertise. Van Gogh biography and artwork will keep a separate identity in art itself – for all generations to come! Most of his artwork can be bought online, made by professional artists who take great pride in their work, for example, through the 1st Art Gallery.