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The right eyes: Rilke on painting

Rilke on painting

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As if woven of fresh reed

December 6, 2017 by Elena Maslova-Levin

Rilke continues to describe van Gogh paintings he saw in Bernheim gallery.

OCTOBER 17 (Part 4)

<…> A man’s portrait against a background (yellow and greenish yellow) that looks as if woven of fresh reed (but which, when you step back, is simplified to a uniform brightness):

Vincent van Gogh. Portrait of Trabuc, an attendant at Saint Paul hospital. 1889

An elderly man with a short-cropped, black-and-white mustache, sparse hair of the same color, cheeks indented beneath a broad skull:

the whole thing in black-and-white, rose, wet dark blue, and an opaque bluish white——except for the large brown eyes—

Rainer Maria Rilke to Clara Rilke

COLORS AND WORDS

“As if woven of fresh reed”: could one even imagine a more precise way to describe not only this particular painting, but ALL of van Gogh’s mature work?

Vincent van Gogh. Wheat field with a Reaper. 1890. Click the image to zoom in.

SEEING PRACTICE: VAN GOGH

I remember the exact moment when I realized that what van Gogh shows us is a precise and truthful depiction of HIS visual reality, his unique experience of fluid, dynamic color. It was in Amsterdam, in front of this self-portrait.

Vincent van Gogh. Self-portrait with grey felt hat. 1887. Click the image to zoom in.

Click the image to zoom in (on Van Gogh Museum site) and see this intensified reality, as though woven of fresh reed which borrowed its colors from the rainbow?

 

Filed Under: Colors and words, Intercourse of colors Tagged With: Green, Portrait, Rose, Vincent Van Gogh, White, Yellow

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