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Autumn Landscape, by Vincent Van Gogh, 1885
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I’m in Maine for my last 2013 painting workshop! The frost isn’t quite on the pumpkin (at least not in Rockland or Rochester) but autumn is in the air. I’m leaving some wonderful fall landscapes for you.
This painting is one of Van Gogh’s earlier landscapes. He hadn’t stepped into his mature style, and was still painting more or less as a traditional impressionist. Nevertheless, it works, largely because of the magnificent drawing.
He wrote to his brother Theo about this painting: “You know those three pollard oaks at the bottom of the garden at home; I have plodded on them for the fourth time. I had been at them for three days with a canvas the size of, lets say, the cottage, and the country church-yard which you have.
“The difficulty was the tufts of havana leaves, to model them and give them form, color, tone. Then in the evening I took it to that acquaintance of mine in Eindhoven, who has a rather stylish drawing room, where we put it on the wall (gray paper, furniture black with gold). Well, never before was I so convinced that I shall make things that do well, that I shall succeed in calculating my colors, so that I have it in my power to make the right effect.”
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Falling Autumn Leaves, by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888
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Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!