Thursday 14 May 2009

Van Gogh's fountain

I like studying what sort of marks artists make when trying to depict water. Here's an example of how Vincent van Gogh drew a fountain when using pen and ink. I spy ripples drawn with a variations in the weight of line plus dappled shade and spray!

Bear in mind he's an inpatient at the hospital at the time!

Fountain in the Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital
Vincent van Gogh - 1889
Van Gogh Museum (Netherlands)
Drawing in Black chalk, pen and ink
Height: 49.5 cm (19.49 in.), Width: 46 cm (18.11 in.)

5 comments:

Sarah said...

Ha ha, I just looked at this post, picture first of course and thought, bloody hell thats good, wonder whos posted that up, then realised that it was ole Vince, not one of us!! Silly me!

Sarah said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jeanette Jobson said...

Interesting how he crosses into both worlds of reality and abstract in this drawing. The fountain is clear and accurately reads as water, brick, solid as does the tree. Then it meanders off into stylized sky.

It works well.

Lindsay said...

It does seem astonishing that poor Vincent was so un appreicated in his own time. What a genius.

vivien said...

I love his drawings. He uses such an inventive and intuitive range of marks and pressure