Colours of the night: Van Gogh

Alexander Ivanov; April 24, 2009

The Easter holidays began with me immersing myself in the work of the great Dutch artist, Van Gogh.

The Amsterdam museum presented a unique exhibition called "Van Gogh and the colours of the night".

Van Gogh - a famous impressionist with a very difficult fate – was looking for himself in art for a long time. At least many artists of the time who emulated his work proved this.

Expressive strokes and a “new reading” of many subjects were not sufficient for Van Gogh - his true vocation was painting colours in the night.

This sounds quite simple, but before Van Gogh, artists would not dare portray their paintings during twilight. And Van Gogh long doubted his ability to portray this in his first famous painting with a scene at dusk - The Potatoe Eaters.

Experts clearly agree that this painting was a successful attempt.However, he hasn't yet passed the test of the crowd of people inspecting his work inch by inch at the museum.

Pure genius

Critics said that Van Gogh spent a lot of time drawng sketches for his Potato Eaters to convey as accurate a picture as possible.

Within 10 years, he was able to create an enormous amount of pictures. Only his famous Sunflowers had more than five versions.

Van Gogh wanted to create a commune for like-minded artists and he even rented a house for this purpose in the French town of Arles. A series of paintings - Sunflowers, amongst them - were created specifically to decorate the walls in this house.

Read more: Van Goch museum Van Gogh gallery Van Gogh in London

The artist's dream was not to be fulfilled. In October 1888, Paul Gauguin came to this community house, but almost immediately there was an altercation between the creators and the community of artists did not take place.

Around this period, Van Gogh was discovered with epilepsy and on 27th of July 1980, he died.

Today, the largest collection of Van Gogh gathered at the Amsterdam museum.

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