Night Cafe at Arles

Taken from: Abc Gallery

     Night Cafe at Arles is a realistic painting that Paul Gauguin had painted while in Arles. This painting is located in Pushkin Museum, which is in Moscow, Russia. The painting is related to the book Sunflowers, because Gauguin came to stay with Van Gogh after receiving an invitation from Theo. The invitation consisted of Gauguin to help make Van Gogh's paintings sell. Both Van Gogh and Gauguin painted similar pictures, however, their styles of painting were different. This painting shows that Gauguin took the time to paint minor details. For example, the facial features of the people in the painting.  This is important because it contrasts Gauguin's paintings from Van Gogh. 
     Night Cafe at Arles was painted in 1888. The medium of the painting is oil on canvas. The style and technique that is used is this painting is a warm color palette. Gauguin also used the technique of long brushstrokes. Gauguin also created two different scenes within one scene. The first scene is the drinkers in the background, and the other scene is Madame Ginoux in the foreground of the painting. The main subject of this painting is loneliness. It conveys loneliness because the women of the painting is separating herself from the other people. 
     

3 Aspects of Society in Arles

   During our time reading the novel Sunflowers by Sheramy Bundrick, we wondered about the societal standards of beauty during the time this book took place. Rachel was a prostitute in the book, and the way that all men flocked to her in the brothel makes us question how society viewed women and what their standards of beauty were. According to Medical Daily, women embraced their curves. Voluptuous women were seen as beauty in Europe in the 1800s. Compared to the 21st century where women are expected to be skinny to be pretty, women in the 1800s were more in the plump side.
   Another aspect of society that we are curious about is the fashion. In the book, the fashion of the characters was described in detail. For example, when Doctor Felix Rey brought Rachel to visit Vincent Van Gogh in Paris, she had to dress up in order to be seen as a regular person on the train to the hospital. Fashion in the 1800s was far more exquisite and fancy than the fashion of modern times, and the fancier you dressed meant the wealthier you were. Women would typically wear dresses or skirts. Men would typically wear trousers, fitted jackets, and hats like the straw hat that Van Gogh would always wear.
  The last aspect of society that we are curious about are the houses that are there. Van Gogh's Yellow House was mentioned a lot in the novel, and this makes us wonder how other houses there are like. The small town of Arles that is portrayed in the book Sunflowers shows very little transportation and the main form of transportation is by foot. The route from the brothel to Vincent's yellow house seems so short that it gives us an idea of how small the town of Arles is. There must be very little houses in Arles, since everyone seems to know of each other.
  These 3 aspects from the book stood out the most to us, and we enjoyed researching these societal aspects of the 1880s in Europe.

Portrait of Joseph Roulin

Taken from: Museum of Fine Arts

  The painting "Postman Joseph Roulin" is one out of seven paintings Van Gogh had painted of him. Van Gogh had painted 25 portraits of the Roulin family. This work of art by Vincent was realistic since Roulin had been his model and for the 7 others as well. This painting showed that when Van Gogh had arrived in Arles he had focused solely on the man and woman living there. Van Gogh had been struggling with his hallucinations around the time he painted this yet the colors he used on Roulin was bright which was surprising since he often had his hallucinations.

  The medium Van Gogh had used for this painting was oil on canvas, The subject is to show a postman working a job but yet looks so full of energy stopped in time on a canvas. The techniques he used was the overlaying of paint over his canvas to show the short strokes when he had painted this. He had used these colors to show what Roulin wears for the job but to also show how energetic he was about his job. It shows his loyalty to his friend since everyone in Arles had started calling him crazy but the Roulin family. 

Book Review

  The book Sunflowers by Sheramy Bundrick is a book that reaches into our emotions while reading about the sad love between Vincent Van Gogh and Rachel. Their fated meeting was on a hot sunny day where Van Gogh had sketched Rachel asleep under a tree. Rachel was angry at Van Gogh but gradually she got closer to him and that eventually turned into something other than warming Van Gogh's bed. There was no problem in the relationship between Van Gogh and Rachel, but Van Gogh and his friend Gauguin. This friendship took a toll on Van Gogh's mental state of mind. Gauguin had not liked Arles and constantly made himself seem superior to Van Gogh. During the night Gauguin was going to leave Arles, he had tried to get Rachel to sleep with her. That made Van Gogh snap with the amount of stress he had before causing a fight. This leads to a loss that Rachel knew might have helped Vincent and herself. The constant hallucinations made Van Gogh realize that he can not be alone but does not want to depend on Rachel like he does to his younger brother Theo. It leads him to the decision of going into an asylum. The constant letters and love poured into the letters back and forth tugs on heart strings in empathy for their love. But soon, tragic news reaches the ears of Rachel and she was finally able to leave the brothel. Even though she was able to leave, the one love she had given her love to had died. Van Gogh had shot himself with a handgun all alone in the middle of a field.
  This book is enticing with the vivid details of the hallucinations and the love between Van Gogh and Rachel. The book had discreetly given the image of sex by subtly writing they were in a room together but not describing the details. Sunflowers showed us the difficulties of an unsuccessful painter and how life can be unsuccessful but cheerful things can still be found in life. When Ms.Kaczmarek had given us a description of the book Sunflowers, the book had caught the attention of many, and we were one of many.

The Brothel

                                                    The Brothel by Vincent Van Gogh

  Vincent painted The Brothel to depict the life of Arles during the night. He associated himself with the working class and made their lifestyles the main theme of his paintings. The Brothel was a place of work for prostitutes. There they waited for their customers so that they could take them back home. This is an important painting in the book because Rachel, Vincent's girlfriend, was one of these prostitutes. Since he enjoyed painting people and their lifestyle he took the advantage of Rachel's job and decided to paint her and the others. Rachel did not think this was a good idea, she felt that she was only seen as a prostitute and not for who she is. After a while she agreed to the painting. 
   The painting was created on a oil canvas with oil paints in 1888. His uses his famous color yellow to paint Rachel in the yellow dress that he loves. He also adds in other colors of red, green and black. He uses short brushstrokes that are rough.

Courtyard of the Hospital at Arles

Courtyard of the Hospital at Arles

  Courtyard of the Hospital at Arles is a realistic painting done by Vincent van Gogh in April of 1889. This painting is now located in Oskar Reinhart Museum in Switzerland. This painting was most likely painted while Van Gogh was in the hospital getting treatment from his crises. This painting was briefly mentioned in the book Sunflowers by Sheramy Bundrick. Van Gogh would often complain that he had nothing to do in the hospital during his stay, and when he did have his sketch books and pencils, he would yearn to paint. The inspiration for this painting was probably him looking out the window from his hospital room or from his walks around the courtyard. 
  This painting was painted on canvas with oil paints. The light brushstrokes of the shrubbery and plants show their texture. He uses a bright palette which includes bright yellows, reds, blues, and greens. The painting also shows a contrast between the dark greens on the left side and the bright yellows on the right side. His attention for detail is shown by him painting individual grass pieces with his light brushstrokes. The bare trees and dark surroundings may symbolize the current state he was in, and the bright colors on the other side represent the light at the end of the tunnel, or his crises.

The Painter of Sunflowers

                                                      Painter of Sunflower-Paul Gauguin


  The Painter of Sunflowers  was painted in 1888 by Paul Gauguin. It is of Vincent Van Gogh, the artist of Sunflowers. Van Gogh created many different versions of Sunflowers to decorate around the house he moved into and Gauguin joined him after for a sort period of time. This is important to the text because you can see how Vincent paints and how his surroundings influence his paintings. This is also important because you can tell the relationship between Gauguin and Van Gogh. Although the two of them encountered many conflicts, they could not stay away from each other. They enjoyed the company of one another. 
  There is no traditional subject in this painting. There is nothing in the medium but Vincent's arm and it is clear that that isn't the purpose of the painting. The subjects of the painting are all pushed to the corner of the painting. You can see Vincent from the waist up and it shows the way he paints. He has the brush in his right hand and the canvas in his left hand. This painting has a style of Post-Impressionism. Gauguin uses short but rough brushstrokes. His use of colors on the oil canvas is bright to show how colorful Van Gogh's Sunflowers are.