About Vincent Van Gogh in the history of fine art
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- About Vincent Van Gogh in the history of fine art: Page: 1 | 2 | 3
- The sermons of Vincent Van Gogh: Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
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Sacred art was financed by religious organisations who are well-trained fund-risers. Sponsors invested into future activities in paradise. Then came the purchase of objects for private worship. After the church officials, the private buyers now told the artists what to paint. The Duke of Rohan, chancellor of Burgundy told his employee Jan van Eyck (1390 - 1441) never to forget that his, Rohans, importance equals that of St. Mary, that Jesus knows that too and that the background must show that traffic in Burgundy was controlled by Rohans brilliant brain, brilliant purse and brilliant lack of morals.
In the middle of the 18 th century, the Enlightenment reached ist peak. It stated that that one should use his own brain and be independent from the opinions of others. For the artists, this meant producing art according to their own taste and conscience and not for clients. No longer any reporting to popes, cotton-barons, professors and critics (no wonder that they are always so offended). Produce a stock of works and sell them "as is".
But the artists liberty is a tricky thing. It means that at all artists need sponsoring until they can sell, which can take a long time. In classic music I have never heard of any concert which had been financed with the sales of tickets. There was always sponsoring. Tax payers, banks, private fans (one pays e.g. the fee of Cecilia Bartoli, another her robe as the Queen of the Night).
Vincent van Gogh was the prototype of the totally free artist. His brother Theo was his sponsor until Vincents death by suicide. Van Goghs freedom was a chance and a frightening burden at the same time. He was strong, stubborn and persisting, but I believe that his suicide was related to shame about his financial dependence. It mixed with fear of running out of canvasses and paint, because Theo had got a son and had signalled that he wanted to give up his safe employment to start his own business.
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Beginning with the Italian Renaissance, Western attention shifted from THE CREATOR to THE CREATION. To us, the deity manifests itself in nature and natural laws. Instead of God observing us every second, we became the observers checking Gods work. We moved from adoration to educated criticism, and then, one sunny day, started to rectify the weaknesses in the creation.
In this detail of Garofalos (1481-1559) "The vision of St. Augustine" the child Jesus points at both, the glory of nature and the magnificience of the works of humans.
The pessimists (Plato) say that human activity gradually ruins the once perfect creation. The optimists say that it is our mission to complete what God had started. Culture indicates the spiritual quality of our progress. (Read Karl Popper: The open society and its enemies).
The pessimists (Plato) say that human activity gradually ruins the once perfect creation. The optimists say that it is our mission to complete what God had started. Culture indicates the spiritual quality of our progress. (Read Karl Popper: The open society and its enemies).
It took a couple of centuries until the full impact of this sank into the minds of people.
In the Enlightenment Jean-Jacques Rousseau shouted "back to nature" and pointed to the "exotic tribes and their happy nobility, preserved because civilisation had not reached them yet". Robert Pirsig wrote in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance": "It would be blasphemic to believe that the Deity could not manifest itself in the well-oiled chain of a motorcycle". This became the grassroot philosophy of pop and fantasy.
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From the 16 th century on the artists became happier and happier. They could switch from Madonnas to trees, lakes and mountains and preserve the full basket of "highest purpose, values and meaning": Eternity, morals, mystic experience and euphoria.
Caspar David Friedrich painted the mystic brotherhood of glorious firtrees and cathedrals. William Turner put his audience in mystic elation and subequent catharsis in face of psychodelic uprorars of sun and storm and sea.
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