Composition
Van Gogh painted Gachet resting his right elbow on a red table, head in hand. Two yellow books as well as the purple medicinal herb foxglove are displayed on the table. The foxglove in the painting is a plant from which digitalis is extracted for the treatment of certain heart complaints, perhaps an attribute of Gachet as a doctor.
The doctor's "sensitive face", which Van Gogh famously wrote to Paul Gauguin carried "the heartbroken expression of our time", is described by Robert Wallace as the portrait's focus. Wallace described the ultramarine blue coat of Gachet, set against a background of hills painted a lighter blue, as highlighting the "tired, pale features and transparent blue eyes that reflect the compassion and melancholy of the man." Van Gogh himself claimed this expression of melancholy "would seem to look like a grimace to many who saw the canvas".
With the Portrait of Dr. Gachet, Van Gogh sought to create a "modern portrait," which he wrote to his sister "impassions me most - much, much more than all the rest of my métier." Elaborating on this quote, Van Gogh scholar Jan Hulsker noted "..much later generations experience it not only as psychologically striking, but also as a very unconventional and 'modern' portrait." He also wrote, "My self-portrait is done in nearly the same way but the blue is the fine blue of the Midi, and the clothes are a light lilac," which would refer to one of his final self-portraits painted in September the year previous.
Van Gogh also wrote to Wilhelmina regarding the Portraits of Madame Ginoux he painted first in Arles in 1888 and again in February 1890 while at the hospital in Saint-Rémy. The second set were styled after the portrait of the same figure by Gauguin, and Van Gogh described Gachet's enthusiasm upon viewing the version painted earlier that year, which the artist had carried with him to the home in Auvers. Van Gogh subsequently carried compositional elements from this portrait to that of Dr. Gachet, including the table-top with two books and pose of the figure with head leaning on one hand.
Read more about this topic: Portrait Of Dr. Gachet
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“Vices enter into the composition of virtues as poisons into the composition of certain medicines. Prudence and common sense mix them together, and make excellent use of them against the misfortunes that attend human life.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“Since body and soul are radically different from one another and belong to different worlds, the destruction of the body cannot mean the destruction of the soul, any more than a musical composition can be destroyed when the instrument is destroyed.”
—Oscar Cullman. Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament, ch. 1, Epworth Press (1958)
“Boswell, when he speaks of his Life of Johnson, calls it my magnum opus, but it may more properly be called his opera, for it is truly a composition founded on a true story, in which there is a hero with a number of subordinate characters, and an alternate succession of recitative and airs of various tone and effect, all however in delightful animation.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)