Impressionist Painting Essay, Research Paper

Impressionist

As I was going down to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art I wasn?t too thrilled of going. I tend to think art museums are boring. What?s the big deal about seeing in artist that died before I even born? Then to have to stand to in line waiting, at this point I was really trying to understand why I was here, the only thing I could think of was that I forced to come here and I need a good grade in History.

As I went into the exhibit I decided to focus on the impressionist paintings of van Gohg since it was perfect for my history project. For van Gohg nature paintings were his main focus. It let him express how he felt through his paintings. As I walked up to the paintings I got different feelings. Like for instance the painting Orchard in Blossom Arles made me have this happy and serene feeling staring at it. I kind of felt that I didn?t want to move because of how calm and beautiful it was. My interpretation of it was that a blossoming tree of flower was a sign of rejuvenation, renewal of life and a sign of complete happiness within the artist. Another painting the Orchard in Blossom made me feel a deeper happiness, but it also was a deeper happiness, like it was a continents within yourself rather than a materialistic thing making you feel happy. Other paintings like Landscape under a Stormy Sky made me feel pity and sadness. I felt that this painting expressed that everything in your life is going good and everything is at ease, and all of a sudden here comes a ? storm? or problem in your life to rain on all your happiness. I think that this foreshadows how van Gohg?s life was going to be from then on, all down hill. Another painting Arles: View from the Wheatfields made me have this feeling of loneliness. Like he worked so hard on what he loved so much, but this never relieved him from this feeling of loneliness. It almost seems that the wheatfields are never ending, and so in fact he will never leave the life of loneliness and enter into the Paradise. Avery strange painting the seascape at Saintes- Maries. You really have to stare at this painting to completely enter into the feeling that this painting is trying to portray. Which is despair. If you look at it closely, I noticed women, which is a shadow probably casting off from the bridge. This woman has no joy, the joy id the ocean and the sailboats, which she is separated from and is trying to reach for it. This made me feel sorry for her, wanting her to reach the happiness she wants and desires. That if she just jumps in, and grabs her joy she wishes to have! A painting that really moved me was Wheat stacks with Reaper. I felt a sense of death, sadness and confession. The confusing shapes, and colors a luxuriant scene of growth, more of a jungle, rather than a garden. I felt that this ?jungle? represented an overabundance of problems in his life and the ?reaper? (death) is going to get rid of all these problems. A painting that hit me hard was Wheat Field with Crows. This made me feel a sense of death and complete sorrow. The crows stood for his soul being freed from all his problems, which is the Wheatfields after he kills himself.

Going to this Art Museum gave me a better appreciation for art, and how a person can express completely how they feel through strokes of a brush, and make you have that same feeling when you look at it!