(1888, Oil on Canvas). The GAP link follows:
(fist bumping myself! I figured out how to add the links!)
Camille Roulin was the middle child of VvG's postman in Arles. At the time, mail was delivered two or more times each day, so Vincent became very familiar with his mailman, Joseph Roulin, and was friendly with Roulin's family, as well. Vincent could not afford fees to pay models, but the Roulin family agreed to sit for him in exchange for some of the paintings that were produced. Camille was 11 at the time this portrait was made. I am posting a link (below) where you can find out more about the Roulin family and their relationship with Vincent, and see many of the paintings of the family that Van Gogh produced during that period.
That Camille Roulin - what a cutie! With his blue eyes and jaunty cap and that impish jut of his chin, you know that Camille must have been just the kind of kid who always had ants in his pants. Vincent captures him leaning forward, ready to spring from the chair. What was this boy thinking about as he tried to sit still for this crazy red headed man? Had he any idea what Vincent was doing as he smashed his sticks into colored blobs then squished the blobs together onto to a frame of stretched tablecloth? His gaze is independent and certainly is not directed at Vincent; you wonder if he was looking at his mother or father admonishing him to try not to move. One of the most charming aspects of his face are his lips, which are permanently pursed in an expression of being ready to blurt!
His simple green coat is accented by a single red button, and, like the clothes of many middle children, the jacket looks just a little too big for him. The background of the portrait is a soft, lemony color, and Vincent also deploys a lot of yellow in the boyish little face. Speaking broadly, only four major colors appear in the painting: yellow, blue, green and red. If they sound familiar, it is because they are the primary colors - what an appropriate choice for the portrait of a child!
Unlike the clogs/velvet loafers paintings, I will attempt to copy this painting as exactly as I can. This will be a real challenge for me because it will force me to do things that I don't really enjoy doing, like staying within the lines, and painstakingly mixing hues to match.
Many art classes assign a project of copying an established artist's work of art. Sometimes instructors will assign all of the students in the class the same painting, and sometimes the teachers will leave it up to the students to pick a painting from an artist that they like. The idea behind this copying is for the students, by studying the established work closely enough to reproduce a facsimile of it, will learn at least a little bit about how the artist made the work.
My first blog post featured my student painting of a chair that I had copied from one painted by Vincent - please note the differences in the color selection (I was not trying to match exactly) and composition.
At first this seemed like stealing - the "real" artist painted it first, and copying (even loosely) a painting that someone else has already done does not seem like the most creative endeavor.
But there is a long history of established artists copying other artist's paintings, styles, techniques, subjects, and pretty much everything else there is that has to do with the making of art. The difference is that established artists do not call this copying - they call it by many other very french sounding names like homage, Parody, Reprise, Imitation, Adaptation, Derivation, and Detournement...
(for your linking pleasure:)
There does seem to be a line, however, which you must not cross. Those works are known by an equally frenchy sounding word: Forgery. And, you don't need for me to tell you that this type of activity can lead to yet another word in our french vocabulary lesson - incarceration!
I started really thinking about "copying" and "homaging" and "borrowing" and "honoring" and all of the other ings involved in "recycling" other artists works when I saw an exhibit recently at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. They had a gallery in their contemporary wing that was devoted to works that were "re-imaginings" of other paintings, fabric, mirrors, furniture, sculpture, photographs and all manner of weird and unusual stuff. The atmosphere and vibe of the exhibition was absolutely thick with deja vu.
One of the pieces in that show which particularly intrigued me was (pictured at left) "Dialogue with Myself 1," 2004, by Yasumasa Morimura - When I saw the image, I immediately recognized it as an almost exact (yet really strange) replica of Freda Kahlo's "The Two Fridas," (1939) a double self portrait that she had done in response to her divorce from Diego Rivera (right). Morimura is a Japanese artist who makes photographic replicas of famous portraits, inserting an image of himself in place of the original subject. Copy? Homage? Parody? You be the judge.What struck me was this: the idea that, what was, essentially, a copy, was hanging in a major museum along with a bunch of other copies. That means that curators must not really think that they are copies... I think that the curators, because they chose to display them, think that these copies are a way of advancing a new layer of the idea of the original work. These copies make the original work newly relevant for a modern audience. I think that is an interesting thing to think about.
Feel free to divert to google images for a look at more of Morimura's work - it is really amusing!
The two Fridas can be found at:
http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/frida-kahlo/the-two-fridas-1939
And now a little housekeeping: In my first blog I indicated that I would be publishing the Wednesday blog by noon. What was I thinking? I am not a morning person, and like the owl, I hoot at night! My new (and improved) deadline shall forever be Wednesdays at midnight. Until I feel like changing it again. It's my blog, so deal.
Again, thank you to those who are reading and following - I appreciate your interest!
OK, it is time to shut up and start painting!
