The Pollarded Willow and Setting Sun and Other Landscapes of Vincent Van Gogh

During Vincent Van Gogh’s lifespan, numerous paintings depicting the scene just outside of a window to his studio were created. An early example and a painting made most famous by its theft in 1999 is “The Pollard Willow” originally finished in 1885 before Van Gogh left his birthplace and home in the Netherlands for France.

The painting, depicting a row of pollard willows in autumn lining a dirt road opposite of a barely visible brick wall was stolen and thought lost for seven years before being found in March of 2006. The painting is a major step in Van Gogh’s progression as an artist as can be seen in his later works painted in the home he shared with Guaguin in Arles and during his stint in Saint-Remy.

The Pollarded Willow and Setting Sun, painted in 1888, during the final months of Van Gogh’s stay in Arles, currently sits in the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands. During the final months spent with Gaugin in Arles, Van Gogh had begun to rethink his approach to Impressionism, still utilizing similar techniques but creating series of paintings similar to those painted in Nuenen before he left the Netherlands.

After leaving Arles in 1889, Van Gogh committed himself to the Saint-Remy-de-Provence Asylum where he painted many of his most prolific masterpieces. While paintings such as Starry Night were painted largely from memory, consisting of swirls and circular patterns, he began a series of paintings reminiscent of those he worked on in Arles depicting the wheat field visible from Van Gogh’s window in the Asylum.

The field was enclosed by the walls of the asylum, on the opposite side of which rose a small hill and farmlands with olive groves and Van Gogh’s cypresses. During Van Gogh’s eleven month stay between June of 1889 and May of 1890, he recorded the same scene numerous times. His images included paintings of the field after a storm in Wheat Field under Threatening Skies, with a reaper, and with corn freshly grown in the fall. Images such as Wheat Field at Sunrise and White Field with Cypress by Vincent Van Gogh are considered masterpieces and have been used in popular culture repeatedly. Tom Cruise’s mind bending Vanilla Sky uses Vincent Van Gogh’s painting, Yellow Wheat and Cypress as a device not only for the naming of the film but for the impressionist aspects of the plot.

Even after leaving Saint-Remy, Van Gogh continued to paint similar pieces depicting wheat fields and trees. Van Gogh’s painting of crows, Wheat Field with Crows, painted in Auvers-sur-Oise was one of the final pieces completed before taking his own life. The painting famously depicts a flock of crows rising into the night sky from a brightly lit field. The contrast of light and dark and the ascension of such a malicious cloud is a suitable conveyance of Van Gogh’s ever shifting moods during this time period. Repeatedly, Van Gogh quoted his use of trees and fields as an extension of his study of life, as displayed in his famous Sunflowers series.

Vincent Van Gogh and the Use of Expressive Lines

Vincent Van Gogh utilized numerous methods to create the landscapes and portraits that define his short artistic career. Rather than painting a landscape or portrait to portray exactly what was present, Van Gogh was interested in painting what he felt as well as what he saw. The world around him was an expression of how he felt and interacted rather than a simple image to be recorded. Van Gogh’s brushstrokes, often wild and unrestrained were not messy or quick, but expressions of emotions regarding his subjects. The emotion beneath the painting was more important to him than the painting itself.

Largely because of the development of photography in the time period during which Van Gogh lived, painters were no longer commissioned to paint imagery as it actually appeared. Art became an opportunity to interpret the world around the artist instead. The technology behind paint began to grow as well. The oil colors Van Gogh used changed from 1883 and the images of cottages and peasants in earthly browns to vibrant chrome yellows during his Paris days. With the freedom to take their canvases outside and the portability of tubed paint, Van Gogh and his contemporaries were freed from the restraints of in-studio imagery.

Even in Van Gogh’s line drawings, the expressive lines of this shift could be seen. His Fritillaries, painted in Paris in 1886 while studying with the Impressionists is a great example of Vincent Van Gogh’s sketches, recreating an image of the flowers without the constraints of depicting the exact image of the flowers. After meeting with the Impressionists, whose work used lighting and short, expressive brushstrokes to recreate the effects of light reflecting off of objects, Van Gogh continued to develop his own style.

Regardless of the few studies that Van Gogh produced though, very few Van Gogh pencil and paper works remain, possibly because he rarely sketched before painting. His painting was furious and rapid, taking place before his subject and never hesitating. Van Gogh did not paint from memory, nor did he spend his time painting what he saw.

Thus, for those that that have strived to learn how to paint like Van Gogh, the process is less about technique and more about mindset. Though there are often particulars in each of his paintings, such as the use of yellows, the rapid expressive brushstrokes of his wheat fields and the swirling patterns of his Saint-Remy days, Van Gogh did not have a singular style. Instead, he utilized the diversity of the new pallete available to painters to recreate images as he felt them.

Taking for example, his painting of Olive Trees. In this painting, Van Gogh paints his tress with full, twisting and curving branches. The ground does not lie flat, but undulates like the ocean, while the sun is a blinding yellow, blazing across the sky. His brushstrokes do not convey mere color. They depict life on their own, utilizing the painter’s energy to depict his emotions.

Andy Warhol - Facts

“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.” Andy Warhol, while famous for works like his iconic Campbell’s Soup Can print, will perhaps be remembered best for his now prescient quote regarding fame in modern society.

Warhol started his career as a commercial illustrator, and made a simple transition from producing work for ads to producing ads ironically as art, in what became known as Pop Art. This eventually led to making general observations on popular culture via art, which many critics at the time regarded as fraudulent and not real art.

Even while working as an ad artist, Warhol was known for shopping his work out to his peers, building a stable or artists that he would rely on. Some of the work that is most closely associated with him was, in fact, merely thought up by Warhol and produced by someone else under his guidance. Eventually, this evolved into Warhol’s famous Factory, where he surrounded himself with like-minded artists, most of whom were under his direction.

Warhol’s reliance on collaboration with others was regarded as controversial at the time, because he was technically taking full credit for work that was not all his own. It is worth noting, however, that many famous painters, such as Picasso and Rembrandt, surrounded themselves with students who became so talented at mimicking their teachers that the differences are still difficult to distinguish today. The gap between the practices of these older, accepted artists and Warhol’s own practices with the Factory seem negligible at best.

Warhol was fascinated by visual art in all its mediums, and embraced the new, cheaper availability of film technology to make avant garde cinema in addition to paintings, screen printings, and sculpture. Warhol’s Factory members, including musicians, artists, models, and bohemians often appeared in his cinematic work.

The openness of Warhol’s Factory came to a near-fatal halt on June 3, 1968 when he and Mario Amaya, a critic and curator, were both shot by radical feminist Valerie Solanas. Amaya escaped with only grazes, but Warhol was seriously wounded. He barely survived the attack and suffered physical repercussions from it for the rest of his life. Solanas said that she attacked Warhol because, “He had too much control over my life.” She had appeared in one of Warhol’s films.

During the seventies, Warhol became more of an entrepreneur, seeking out celebrities who would commission expensive portraits, including Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson. It was also during this period that he created his famous portrait of Mao Tse-Tung.

Warhol often chose specific artists that he would ‘adopt,’ notably the band The Velvet Underground, for which he created the famous ‘banana’ cover for the album The Velvet Underground and Nico.

During the seventies, Warhol became associated with the disco and club scenes in New York, where he would frequently be seen on the periphery, a quiet, pale man simply observing. Most notably he frequented iconic discos like Serendipity 3 and Studio 54.

In the eighties, Warhol became widely renowned again, this time as a discover of young artists, most notably Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well as Julian Schnabel (who would later direct a film about Basquiat) and David Salle, leaders of the school called Neo-Expressionism.

It is telling that Warhol has appeared as a character in almost twenty films, portrayed by talents as diverse as Guy Pearce (Factory Girl), David Bowie (Basquiat), and Crispin Glover (The Doors). He has also appeared as a character in Austin Powers and an episode of The Simpsons, representing just how iconic a figure he is in American pop culture.

Andy Warhol died February 22, 1987, following complications after a gallbladder surgery in New York. He was buried in Pittsburgh next to his parents, in a black cashmere suit and wearing his trademark platinum wig. He was also buried with a copy of Interview magazine, an Interview t-shirt, a rose, a prayer book, and a bottle of Estee Lauder Beautiful perfume.

He had so many possessions at the time of his death that it took Sotheby’s nine days to sell it all off, generating more than 20 million dollars.

In 2007, on the 20th anniversary of Warhol’s death, the Gershwin Hotel in New York hosted a week-long event remembering Warhol’s work and influence. Attendees included the superstars of his Factory, his peers, his subjects, and his fans. Blondie performed, and The Carrozzini von Buhler Gallery in New York hosted an exhibit of work by Warhol and his students, as well as work of a younger generation inspired by Warhol.