Poppies and Daisies

Red Poppies and Daisies
Vincent van Gogh (links to a nice audiovisual bio and info)
oil on canvas
65.0 x 50.0 cm.
1890
private collection


As is usual, my Friday is a little wonky. Always have trouble getting things done, so I apologize for the lateness of the art today. Today is simple yet gorgeous (weather and art!) this is currently the image on my desktop. It took me awhile to find the details of this image (ie location, date, size). I eventually did at a website dedicated to van Gogh (supposedly endorsed by the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam), it has eons of digital images organized by the period of time and place in which they were created, very limited on subjects to search. Before this, Unfortunately I couldn't find the image anywhere that is not selling a print of it, which is pretty awful for all kinds of reasons including the insane commercialization of "pretty" pictures. It's as if an original never existed. It is fascinating to do an image search for something you've seen in person (and know the colors and hues etc.) and see the unending array of bad reproductions out there. To check out more flower paintings and more... (so prolific he was, creating 840 paintings and 1000 drawings in just 10 years) see here... There isn't a shortage of van Gogh paintings in public collections, I suggest the next time you come across one, spend some time with it. It took me some years to really begin to understand and appreciate his work, and the application of paint is simply marvelous and something I took on in my own work back in college - to no equivalent measure but I enjoy it just the same.

It's an interesting bit about digital images, many assume they are better (and they are getting better) but because of the quick and easy way of being able to create them, originally with art, not enough attention was paid to color detail. A reason why there are still many an art prof out there who wants to hold onto his slides because some of them (those that are well made and not excruciatingly old) actually provide a better surrogate image then some of those born digital. I digress... enjoy van Gogh's flowers as I always do and more van Gogh will be in your future (as one of my all time favorite paintings is a van Gogh, care to guess what it is?)