Signs and Symbols Art Essay Example

profusely view artworks, it is imperative that the visual language that the artist is communicating through is entirely identified.

The essence of symbolism in art came from artists Gaugin and Van Gogh who fashioned a movement known as Symbolism. These two artists who had proceeded the Impressionists, began to paint based on the ideas of feelings and moods by emanating emotion through their paintings. Van Gogh’s The Night Cafe (1888) [refer Appendix 1] depicts the intimacy of Paris at night through the use of dark colours and dull tones. These methods became a fundamental paradigm in Van Gogh’s many self-portraits which often used colour as a means of illustrating Van Gogh’s mental state.

Vincent Willem Van Gogh was born on the 30th of March, 1853, in Groot Zundert, Brabant Holland into a 19th century society that would not appreciate the artistic genius that he was. He was only able to produce the 2000 drawings and 800 canvases because of the financial and moral support of his brother Theo, who was one of very few people that recognised his potential. Having only sold 1 painting The Red Vineyard (1888) [refer Appendix 2] for 400 francs throughout his career, he was dubbed a failure.

Brett Whiteley born on the 7th of April, 1939, is one Australia’s most renowned artists of the 20th century. He is accredited in winning the highly regarded Archibald Prize twice. The two artists experienced many differences in the recognition of their works and ironically they both would end their lives prematurely through suicide. The artists Brett Whitely and Vincent Van Gogh shared similar epitomes relating to symbolism, although Whiteley and the preponderance of the modern art

world had been influenced by Van Gogh.

Van Gogh in contrast to the Impressionists which he been studying, (Monet, Sisley, Morisot, and Pissarro who believed that “art was highest when it stood on its own”) produced works that were “consciously symbolic”, this means that Van Gogh intentionally included signs and symbols or visual language in his works. Van Gogh also challenged the conventions of Impressionist art, in trying to reproduce the world in its exact state, while “Van Gogh’s art was a communication or expression of intellect, mystery, emotion, and imagination”.

Van Gogh was obsessed in trying to “express himself through symbols”, he achieved this through the use of colour and tones to convey mood and feelings. Whiteley’s works parallels Van Gogh’s in its deliberate use of symbols in his paintings and while Whiteley observed many of the principles of Symbolism, his had its own unique facility of Surrealist attached. This can be appreciated in Night Cafe (1972) [refer Appendix 3] where Whiteley depicted Van Gogh’s The Night Cafe (1888) [refer Appendix 1] and distorted the image and took the lines of the room to a vanishing point, idealising Whiteley’s Surrealist style.

Whiteley’s use of symbolism in his works is outstandingly illustrated in Whiteley’s Archibald Prize winning self-portrait Art, Life and the Other Thing (1978) [refer Appendix 4] where Whiteley demonstrates the controversy of the Archibald in his representation of the William Dobell’s controversial winning portrait of Joshua Smith (1943) [refer Appendix 5] and John Bloomfield’s disqualification from the Archibald 1975 because of his portrait that was deemed to be painted from a picture of Tim Burstall. Whiteley represents these two controversies in his triptych self-portrait ontaining a

photograph of how he looks in real life, a mixed media self-portrait, and a depiction of a baboon symbolising the metaphorical “monkey on his back”. Whitely once said “the fundamental reason one paints is in order to see”, describing how he thinks that his art is a method granting means of communication to his audience. Van Gogh was always in the search of art and how it was to be created, he once said “the positive consciousness of the fact that art is something greater and higher than our own adroitness or accomplishments or knowledge”.

Van Gogh recognised that Art was more than simply representations of reality. He studied theology, and applied this knowledge into his works. Whiteley may have possibly drawn his notions of portraiture, preferably his incoherence to the conventions of portraiture from Van Gogh, though the two artists shared recognition of the works of Rembrandt. Van Gogh described how he completed his works as “The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech” he produces his paintings as they are an emotional reflection rather than a planned thought.

He also suggested “Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous” referencing Rembrandt and conventional portraiture as lacking any imagination, however, Van Gogh also recognised that at what they were doing they were comprehensive in. Whiteley on the other hand composed his images through vast exploration of himself; he would continuously change mediums and subjects in an effect to thoroughly explore his feelings.

Whiteley stated “Everyone reaches a point in their life where they must either change

or cease”. This comment formed the basis of Whiteley’s thought process, which directed his broad and comprehensive range of various compositions. After Van Gogh’s brother Theo told him that he was wasting his talent drawing with pencil, he turned to oil paints, with which he became very proficient in fashioning his unique style of small “pointille”, free-flowing brushstrokes and he created luscious texture from thickly applied paint on the canvas.

Van Gogh developed his iconic contrast of colour with oil paints, the blues and cool colours that made up his backgrounds were differentiated by the orange and warm colours of his face. He idolised his choice of colour for paintings in letters to his brother Theo as “There is no blue without yellow and without orange”. This contrast of colours is best seen Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait (1889) [refer Appendix 6] Whiteley in stark contrast to Van Gogh uses almost every artistic medium.

His art making involved found objects, print making, sculpture, painting, drawing, photography, collage and mixed media which often encompassed many of these forms into the one artwork. Most notably in his intricate collage’s in which he has become internationally renowned for Self Portrait in the Studio (1976) [refer Appendix 7] and Art, life and the Other Thing (1978) [refer Appendix 4].

Whiteley dissimilar to Van Gogh in his broad exploration of different artistic mediums to convey a sense of self, as well as his notorious experimentation with drugs to find how it would alter his artmaking through his explorations of the psych. In conclusion it has been demonstrated that the artistic works of Van Gogh and Whiteley both portray the embedded use of signs and symbols

to convey the visual language. The works of both artists were enriched by their own emotions and feelings and their own expressions of their inner self.