Painting Art Analysis Essay

Painting art: analysis of Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings.
Painting is one of the oldest forms of art. Painting represents the world in pictures and over time, it has evolved. The painting art has taken radical turns, with more being put into it including color and action painting. Vincent Van Gogh is one of the famous artists, who has made over 900 paintings. In his adult life, he did painting before meeting his death and is paintings are very popular and the most expensive. He has lots of paintings as mentioned but this paper will only focus on two of his famous paintings, “the potato eater” and the “café terrace at night”.
The potato eaters The potato eaters painting was painted by Vincent Van Gogh himself and it was one of his first paintings.

The portrait is 80.7cm x 53.3cm in dimensions (Polyxeni 1335), a famous painting that has been greatly analyzed by other people. The portrait was painted in 1888 in Arles, France. He did this painting during his stay in France, and forms the first painting he did using a nocturnal background. Just like the potato eaters painting, this painting was also done on canvas by use of oil.
The painting shows the outside and a terrace of a famous café at night. The terrace is lit by a lantern emitting yellow light and there are figures of people drinking. This portrait depicts the image of drinkers when they drink in the harsh and bright lights at night. It is therefore a genre painting because it depicts the day to day life of people in recreation and the images are represented in a realistic manner. Because it represents normal and daily activities of ordinary people, the painting used to be hang in cafes and even in people’s private

The painting is thus more interesting because it is full of light and it’s beautiful. Looking at the picture creates an emotional environment filled with peace. This is because the blue colored night, the stars and the light seem to bring consolation and peace of mind to those around. This painting is classified in the post impression period because of how it evokes emotions rather than expressing realism. Post impression encourages use of color, even unrealistic color and light (Fichner 29). Vincent in this painting uses blue color to represent the darkness, of course it is unrealistic but instead, evokes emotions. Post impression paintings employ the use of artificial color to portray how the painters perceive the world around them. Café terrace at night is a famous painting because of its nocturnal background, the excitement and pleasure brought out by the brush strokes in the image.
Works cited
Fichner-Rathus, Lois. Foundations of Art and Design. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, 2012. Print.
Potter, Polyxeni. "Sometimes the Naked Taste of Potato Reminds Me of Being Poor.". (Cover Story)." Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol. 15, no. 6, June 2009, pp. 1001-1002. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3201/eid1506.000000. Polyxeni, potter. "Not from the Stars Do I My Judgment Pluck." Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol. 16, no. 8, Aug. 2010, pp. 1335-1336.