Lumcloon National School, Co. Offaly

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh was born in 1853 and died in 1890. He was a famous dutch painter. He painted about 800 paintings and he only sold one painting in his lifetime. He battled against poverty, alcoholism and insanity. His painting career only lasted ten years. He moved to Paris in 1886. His paintings were about a range of subjects, including landscapes, portraits and still life. In some of Van Gogh's paintings he painted with vigorous swirly brush-strokes. In 1888 he moved and settled in Arles, a place in the south of France. At this point of his life he was suffering from depression. He was friendly with another artist called Paul Gauguin, but Gauguin and Van Gogh quarreled, and all the quarrelling drove Van Gogh to cut off part of his own ear. In the last seventy days before Van Gogh shot himself he painted about seventy paintings. In 1890 he shot himself and three days later he died. His fame increased after his death. We looked at some of his famous paintings in groups and wrote down what we thought about them. Here is what we came up with - our feelings and ideas.

self portrait This painting is called "Portrait of the Artist". There are light greens, blues, browns and white. It is a portrait of himself. He is not a friendly or happy looking person. The colours are unusual. It would be very hard to paint this because of all the swirly brush strokes and difficult to get the right colours. The colours are gloomier than normal and the expression on his face is angry and his eyes are fierce looking. All the swirls would make you feel dizzy and confused. It is a not a painting you would like looking at.

This picture is called "Bedroom at Arles". It has lots of blues, browns and yellows. It is a bit cartoony looking. Van Gogh used long straight brush strokes. We think he was feeling calm when he painted this because he doesn't have his usual swirly wild spirals here. You can see bright sunlight outside the window. You'd know he likes pictures because he has a lot of them hanging on his walls.It is a very plain poor bedroom, maybe his own. He has lots of bits and pieces in the room, so maybe he spends a lot of time here. We like the picture because it is bright and colourful and we thought it would be easy to paint until we tried it on Friday last. Very tricky!

This is a very famous painting called "Starry Night".It shows a town at night with a few lights on. there is a church in the town and its spire is pointing up at the sky. We think the dark shape which is also pointing up is some cypress trees which he is always painting. The sky is full of huge stars made up of concentric circles like the sun in "Cypresses with Two People". The sky is mad looking compared with the sleepy town. The spiral shapes made up of tiny brush-strokes can be seen here too. The sky is so full of life that you keep looking at it. Maybe Van Gogh was a bit hyper when he painted this picture. Don MacLean wrote a very famous song about Vincent Van Gogh called "Vincent" and it starts with the line "Starry, Starry Night, Paint your palette blue and grey".

This painting is called "Still Life with Onions". We think it was a very hard picture to paint. It was probably at night because the candle was lit. The bottle is very realistic. It is an indoor picture- a still life with onions, a pipe, a book, a letter and a kettle. The background is made up of straight strokes. Again he uses his favourite colours - yellow, blue and greens here. What we do not like is that you cannot see some of the objects clearly. He must have been a smoker because there is a pipe in a few of his paintings.

This painting is called "Cypresses and Two Figures". Van Gogh uses a lot of yellows, oranges and blues, which seem to be his favourite colours. It is evening time because both the sun and moon are out. There are two cypress trees intertwined, two people walking and the sun and the moon - all in pairs. The picture would be hard to draw because of all the wavy brush strokes - hundreds of them all leading into the distance. There are concentric circles in the sky that make the sky look mad and confused. Maybe Van Gogh was feeling the same and maybe the single star represents his loneliness.

Church This picture is called "Church". It is either evening or a stormy day in the painting. This sky might stand for his state of mind - maybe he has a storm brewing in his brain. The colour of the church windows are the same as the sky. The colours are rich deep blues and yellows and oranges. We all liked the picture. It would be very hard to paint this, we think. There is one peasant woman in the picture all alone so maybe she stands for Van Gogh being lonely in his life. He uses lots of short brush strokes and they all lead towards the church. He does this a lot in his pictures. We think this is one of his good paintings.

This painting is called "Terraza del Caffe". It is night in the painting and there is an outdoor restaurant so the weather must have been good. There are yellows, blues, greys and oranges for colours. We think it is one of his better paintings. We think Vincent Van Gogh felt lonely when he was painting it because the people are all away in the distance and you can't tell if they are having a good time or not. It would make you feel lonely because even though it is in a town it is not busy and it's kind of deserted.

This painting is called "Sunflowers". It is set indoors. He uses bright colours such as yellows and oranges. He has not used his usual wavy type of painting with loads of little strokes. The flowers are a bit spidery looking. I think he might have been feeling lonely because they look dead and droopy. He has his name on the vase which is a strange place to put it. He put his name on a box in the painting "The Chair". I think it would be hard to copy this picture.