What is Identity? Identity is how you identify and what makes you who you are. It can be the stories that shaped you, memories, or your culture.
Vincent Van Gogh was born in the Netherlands on March 30, 1853 but lived in France. He was a victim of depression and suffered from loneliness which is depicted in his works. His inner, personal battles inspired his work throughout his life. Throughout his career, he created 2,100 pieces of work and around 800 oil paintings until 1890 when he tragically took his own life.
In this self portrait, the background depicts a psychotic state and the blush pattern highlights overflow the artists feelings onto his surroundings.Quote: “Elkman has built up a list over ten thousand facial configurations that represent emotional states such as honesty, anger, fear, modesty, and so on." (Finkelstein, Pg 123)
Mental illness shows who he was, what he suffered, and his emotions. His depression, psychotic states, and loneliness were part of him throughout his life.
He shows stories, such as this one where he hurt his ear while he was with friends.
Memories and our stories shape who we are. Memories are a significant part of our lives and cause us to remember places, things, and people.
The Potato Eaters, 1885
Vincent Van Gogh drew identity through social class. Social class tends to mean a lot and makes up a big part of us considering class comes with family. Vincent Van Gogh portrayed peasants in his work. He brought attention to people in society not highly talked about.
Quote: “Over the centuries links have been asserted between the shape of the head, or eyebrows, lips, ears and fingers, and the counterpart characteristics of intelligence, character, moral rectitude, perversity and criminality. Some have argued that the shape of the nose signifies levels of cruelty, pugnacity and kindness, or that the ears demonstrate impulsiveness and the capacity for memory.” (Finkelstein, Pg 123) There was a certain structure that you had to look in order to be classified as high class. Therefore, he drew the peasants hands and noses a certain way to show the hard work they have been through to eat those potatoes.
Head of Prostitute, 1885
Vincent Van Gogh used to draw people of ordinary and everyday life. He wanted to show the city life, and sometimes there were people that did not have the best known identity.
Quote: “We are in an era where impressions matter, and where reputation is both an asset and a liability.” (Finkelstein, Pg 122)
Woman Sewing, 1881
Van Gogh rejected the sewing machine and prefered to draw a women sewing manually because it was a traditional activity which had been done for centuries. Through this work he reflected cultural, moral, emotional, continuity, endurance aspects of life at this time. These themes could not be shown through the sewing machine.
Quote: "Some kinds of dress and body decoration makes the identity of the individual highly visible, while others disguise it” (Finkelstein, Page 127)
Beat up shoes, most likely worn by someone of the lower class. Working shoes that are worn out.
Vincent Van Gogh is a highly praised painter and artist at a global level. He is famously known for his iconic and classical paintings. The irony of his story was that throughout his life he remained unknown and undiscovered, but after his death his fame increased rapidly. To us his identity is that of a famous, talented painter, but during his life he was a victim of his mental illness and drew other identities not well talked about.
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