Van Goghs Use of Color

Van Goghs Use of Color The works of Van Gogh and his use of color have often been studied chronologically demonstrating the shift in his usage of colors from his early paintings, which were dark and pessimistic, to the paintings of his mature career, where he has used lighter tones and brighter colors.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Van Gogh’s Use of Color specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In the later stage, Van Gogh made a distinct use of complementary color scheme, which was a definite shift from the classical treatment of colors. This paper will compare and contrast two paintings, The Sower and The Night Cafà ©, and demonstrate the distinct style Van Gogh followed to use color for his paintings. Expressive use of colors in distinctive complementary schemes has dominated many of the masterpieces created by Van Gogh. His correspondences to his brother during the 1882-85 demonstrate his obsession with the use of color in his work. They demonstrate that Van Gogh’s concern and distinction between shades, tones, hue, and brightness of color, which formed the psychological basis of colors and themes of his paintings. The use of complementary colors, which became the signature of Van Gogh’s style, helped to intensify the mutual effect of the color scheme in the paintings. Van Gogh used basic colors and contrasting hues to increase firmness and depth of his paintings: These things that are relevant to complementary colors, to the simultaneous contrasting and the mutual devaluation of complementary colors, are the first and most important issue: the second is the mutual influence of two similar colors, such as carmine and vermilion, or a pink-lilac and a blue-lilac. (Van Gogh Letter # 428, dated Oct. 1885. (Bekker and Bekker) The use of primary colors and the use of their complementary colors, also known as secondary colors, is a basic technique used for impressionistic painting. When a primary color is put against a complementary color, it creates a contrasting color scheme, creating a powerful effect. Van Gogh exploited this technique of creating a strong effect in his painting through juxtaposition of primary and complementary colors. Van Gogh’s fascination for complementary colors intensified as he shifted his focus from Dutch style to paintings that are more impressionistic.Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Gayford (179) demonstrates Van Gogh’s heightened interest in colors, which created a symbolic language for the maestro. In another correspondence to his brother Theo, Van Gogh expressed his increasing obsession with colors: â€Å"Yesterday evening an extraordinary beautiful sunset of a mysterious, sickly citron color – Prussian blue cypresses against trees with dead leaves in all sorts of broken tones without any speckling with bright gr eens.† (Gayford 179) Thus, colors create a symbolic language for Van Gogh, which helped his to determine the effect that wanted to create in his paintings. Given this understanding of Van Gogh’s philosophy of color, the essay then moves on to analyze two of his paintings and the treatment of colors in them. The Sower demonstrates a man striding across a wheat field, with outstretched arms, appear in many of Van Gogh’s paintings and sketches. Philosophically, it has often been interpreted as the renewal of life; however, in this essay we will discuss the use of complementary color scheme of the paintings. The particular picture that is discussed in this essay was painted in 1888, which stands out from all other paintings of sowers and creates a unique impressionistic creation of the cycle life in full summer (The Sower is shown in figure 1 below). Figure 1: The Sower, 1888 The Sower, painted predominately in yellow and violet demonstrates the use of complementary colors by Van Gogh. Yellow is a primary color that is positioned against violet, one of its complements, and a mix of the other two primary colors, red and blue. Even though artists had knowledge of the effect two complementary colors could create, no one before Van Gogh experimented with it.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Van Gogh’s Use of Color specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Primary colors, when juxtaposed with complementary colors, create a vibration and magnificence that is otherwise unattainable. Hence, when yellow is used against violet, it creates greater brightness and pureness of color than when painted with any other colors. Similarly, violet seems more lively and vigorous when put against yellow. The Sower was painted when Van Gogh was living in Arles, in June 1888. The original Sower by Millet from which Van Gogh drew inspiration or his Sower believed that Millet created a painting in â€Å"c olorless gray† and wanted to create a painting of the sower with colors (Bekker and Bekker). In order to understand color contrast, consider putting orange against blue and orange against green. Orange is blue’s complement where blue is a primary color and orange is a secondary color created through mixing of the other two primary, red and yellow. Hence, the effect of brightness when orange and blue are used together is greater than when orange and green are used, wherein both are secondary colors. Moreover, the orange when put with green seem darker, almost a different color. Hence, it can be observed that colors can change their hue and brightness depending on the colors with which they are used. Moreover, colors cannot be used singularly, without considering the other colors that are used. Colors cannot be judged in isolation. Hence, it is important to understand what colors are used along with the others and what affect it creates in the paintings. Knowledge of colo rs becomes the most important factor while studying Van Gogh’s form so impressionistic painting. The painting of the yellow and violet together as an expression of light and darkness in the field is an extreme example of use of complementary colors in paintings. This helped in intensifying the brightness, saturation, and depth of the painting. Van Gogh described his 1888 creation inspired from Millet’s painting, in one of his letters, as â€Å"painting from Millet’s drawings is more like translating them into another language than copying them† (Metzger and Walther 272). The colors used in the painting became reminiscent of his emotions and feelings. The colors demonstrated the dominant mood of the painter. The Night Cafà © is a poetic expression through colors, which demonstrates the harsher realities of modern life. Van Gogh’s obsession with colors intensified from 1885 until his death in 1890, resonant in his letters to his brother Theo. Each o f the letters is evocative of the saturation, hue, and intensity of the colors from his palette. In describing the Night Cafà © (figure 2) in his letter to Theo, Van Gogh associates passion with the use of two complementary colors – red and green:Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More I’ve tried to express the terrible passions of humanity with red and green. The room is blood red and dull yellow, with a green billiard table in the middle; there are four lemon yellow lamps casting an orange and green glow†¦ In my picture of the night cafà ©, I’ve tried to convey the sense that the cafà © is a place where one goes to ruin goes mad, commits crimes. I’ve tried to express the powers of darkness, in a way, in this dive of a bar, through contrasts of delicate pink, blood red, wine red, and soft Louis XV green and Veronese green, in contrast with hard green-yellows and blue-greens – all this amid an infernal furnace of pale sulphur. (Letter#533, Bekker and Bekker) The above description of the painting as expressed through Van Gogh’s words demonstrate the use of complementary colors in the painting, and the reason for the sue of the colors in their complementary best. Life’s juxtaposition is expressed through the oppositio ns of color that makes life as well as his paintings so pulsating. In the Night Cafà © Van Gogh has expressed the struggle of life through the juxtaposition of the two complementary colors – red and green. The violet and blue used in the painting depicts sadness and dreariness of modern nightlife, and Figure 2: The Night Cafà © The painting shows maximum saturation of colors, where colors like red and green has been used without any hint of tint or shade. In the Night Cafà ©, Van Gogh used color in its purest form against its equally pure complementary. This is not seen in The Sower, where the colors were used symbolically, but not its purest hue. The use of original hue in the Night Cafà © sets is apart from other paintings, even though the technique used in both the pictures are similar. Nevertheless, both the picture reverberates with the infernal furnace of life though the use of yellow, which has been used to depict the sun in The Sower and the lamps in The Night Ca fà ©. The difference between the two paintings is that the first is a depiction of continuity of life while that of the cafà © describes a hellish existence. Bekker, K.G. and A.Y. Bekker. 2009. Color and Emotion - a Psychophysical Analysis of Van Gogh’s Work. 15 December 2009. PsyArt. Web. psyartjournal.com/article/show/bekker-color_and_emotion_a_psychophysical_analy. Gayford, Martin. The Yellow House.:Van Gogh, Gauguin and Nine Turbulent Weeks Provence. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. Print. Metzger, Rainer and Ingo F. Walther. Van Gogh. Berlin: Taschen, 2008. Print.

Battle of Talas River - Background

Battle of Talas River - Background Few people today have even heard of the Battle of Talas River.  Yet this little-known skirmish between the army of Imperial Tang China and the Abbasid Arabs had important consequences, not just for China and Central Asia, but for the entire world. Eighth century Asia was an ever-shifting mosaic of different tribal and regional powers, fighting for trade rights, political power and/or religious hegemony. The era was characterized by a dizzying array of battles, alliances, double-crosses and betrayals. At the time, nobody could have known that one particular battle, which took place on the banks of the Talas River in present-day Kyrgyzstan, would halt the Arab and Chinese advances in Central Asia and fix the boundary between Buddhist/Confucianist Asia and Muslim Asia. None of the combatants could have predicted that this battle would be instrumental in transmitting a key invention from China to the western world: the art of paper-making, a technology that would alter world history forever. Background to the Battle For some time, the powerful Tang Empire (618-906) and its predecessors had been expanding Chinese influence in Central Asia. China used soft power for the most part, relying upon a series of trade agreements and nominal protectorates rather than military conquest to control Central Asia. The most troublesome foe faced by the Tang from 640 forward was the powerful Tibetan Empire, established by Songtsan Gampo. Control of what is now Xinjiang, Western China, and neighboring provinces went back and forth between China and Tibet throughout the seventh and eighth centuries. China also faced challenges from the Turkic Uighurs in the northwest, the Indo-European Turfans, and the Lao/Thai tribes on Chinas southern borders. The Rise of the Arabs While the Tang were occupied with all these adversaries, a new superpower rose in the Middle East. The Prophet Muhammad died in 632, and the Muslim faithful under the Umayyad Dynasty (661-750) soon brought vast areas under their sway. From Spain and Portugal in the west, across North Africa and the Middle East, and on to the oasis cities of Merv, Tashkent, and Samarkand in the east, the Arab conquest spread with astonishing speed. Chinas interests in Central Asia went back at least to 97 B.C., when the Han Dynasty general Ban Chao led an army of 70,000 as far as Merv (in what is now Turkmenistan), in pursuit of bandit tribes that preyed on early Silk Road caravans. China also had long courted trade relations with the Sassanid Empire in Persia, as well as their predecessors the Parthians. The Persians and Chinese had collaborated to quell rising Turkic powers, playing different tribal leaders off of one another. In addition, the Chinese had a long history of contacts with the Sogdian Empire, centered in modern-day Uzbekistan. Early Chinese/Arab Conflicts Inevitably, the lightning-quick expansion by the Arabs would clash with Chinas established interests in Central Asia. In 651, the Umayyads captured the Sassanian capital at Merv and executed the king, Yazdegerd III. From this base, they would go on to conquer Bukhara, the Ferghana Valley, and as far east as Kashgar (on the Chinese/Kyrgyz border today). News of Yazdegards fate was carried to the Chinese capital of Changan (Xian) by his son Firuz, who fled to China after the fall of Merv. Firuz later became a general of one of Chinas armies, and then governor of a region centered at modern-day Zaranj, Afghanistan. In 715, the first armed clash between the two powers occurred in the Ferghana Valley of Afghanistan. The Arabs and Tibetans deposed King Ikhshid and installed a man named Alutar in his place. Ikhshid asked China to intervene on his behalf, and the Tang sent an army of 10,000 to overthrow Alutar and reinstate Ikhshid. Two years later, an Arab/Tibetan army besieged two cities in the Aksu region of what is now Xinjiang, western China. The Chinese sent an army of Qarluq mercenaries, who defeated the Arabs and Tibetans and lifted the siege. In 750 the Umayyad Caliphate fell, overthrown by the more aggressive Abbasid Dynasty. The Abbasids From their first capital at Harran, Turkey, the Abbasid Caliphate set out to consolidate power over the sprawling Arab Empire built by the Umayyads. One area of concern was the eastern borderlands - the Ferghana Valley and beyond. The Arab forces in eastern Central Asia with their Tibetan and Uighur allies were led by the brilliant tactician, General Ziyad ibn Salih. Chinas western army was headed by Governor-General Kao Hsien-chih (Go Seong-ji), an ethnic-Korean commander. It was not unusual at that time for foreign or minority officers to command Chinese armies because the military was considered an undesirable career path for ethnic Chinese noblemen. Appropriately enough, the decisive clash at Talas River was precipitated by another dispute in Ferghana. In 750, the king of Ferghana had a border dispute with the ruler of neighboring Chach. He appealed to the Chinese, who sent General Kao to assist Ferghanas troops. Kao besieged Chach, offered the Chachan king safe passage out of his capital, then reneged and beheaded him. In a mirror-image parallel to what had happened during the Arab conquest of Merv in 651, the Chachan kings son escaped and reported the incident to Abbasid Arab governor Abu Muslim at Khorasan. Abu Muslim rallied his troops at Merv and marched to join Ziyad ibn Salihs army further east.  The Arabs were determined to teach General Kao a lesson... and incidentally, to assert Abbasid power in the region. The Battle of Talas River In July of 751, the armies of these two great empires met at Talas, near the modern-day Kyrgyz/Kazakh border. Chinese records state that the Tang army was 30,000 strong, while Arab accounts put the number of Chinese at 100,000. The total number of Arab, Tibetan and Uighur warriors is not recorded, but theirs was the larger of the two forces. For five days, the mighty armies clashed. When the Qarluq Turks came in on the Arab side several days into the fighting, the Tang armys doom was sealed. Chinese sources imply that the Qarluqs had been fighting for them, but treacherously switched sides midway through the battle. Arab records, on the other hand, indicate that the Qarluqs were already allied with the Abbasids prior to the conflict. The Arab account seems more likely since the Qarluqs suddenly mounted a surprise attack on the Tang formation from the rear. (If the Chinese accounts are correct, wouldnt the Qarluqs have been in the middle of the action, rather than riding up from behind? And would the surprise have been as complete, if the Qarluqs had been fighting there all along?) Some modern Chinese writings about the battle still exhibit a sense of outrage at this perceived betrayal by one of the Tang Empires minority peoples. Whatever the case, the Qarluq attack signaled the beginning of the end for Kao Hsien-chihs army. Of the tens of thousands the Tang sent into battle, only a small percentage survived. Kao Hsien-chih himself was one of the few who escaped the slaughter; he would live just five years more, before being put on trial and executed for corruption. In addition to the tens of thousands of Chinese killed, a number were captured and taken back to Samarkand (in modern-day Uzbekistan) as prisoners of war. The Abbassids could have pressed their advantage, marching into China proper. However, their supply lines were already stretched to the breaking point, and sending such a huge force over the eastern Hindu Kush mountains and into the deserts of western China was beyond their capacity. Despite the crushing defeat of Kaos Tang forces, the Battle of Talas was a tactical draw. The Arabs eastward advance was halted, and the troubled Tang Empire turned its attention from Central Asia to rebellions on its northern and southern borders. Consequences of the Battle of Talas At the time of the Battle of Talas, its significance was not clear. Chinese accounts mention the battle as part of the beginning of the end for the Tang Dynasty. That same year, the Khitan tribe in Manchuria (northern China) defeated the imperial forces in that region, and Thai/Lao peoples in what is now Yunnan province in the south revolted as well. The An Shi Revolt of 755-763, which was more of a civil war than a simple revolt, further weakened the empire. By 763, the Tibetans were able to seize the Chinese capital at Changan (now Xian). With so much turmoil at home, the Chinese had neither the will nor the power to exert much influence past the Tarim Basin after 751. For the Arabs, too, this battle marked an unnoticed turning point. The victors are supposed to write history, but in this case, (despite the totality of their victory), they did not have much to say for some time after the event. Barry Hoberman points out that the ninth-century Muslim historian al-Tabari (839-923) never even mentions the Battle of Talas River. Its not until half a millennium after the skirmish that Arab historians take note of Talas, in the writings of Ibn al-Athir (1160-1233) and al-Dhahabi (1274-1348). Nevertheless, the Battle of Talas had important consequences. The weakened Chinese Empire was no longer in any position to interfere in Central Asia, so the influence of the Abbassid Arabs grew. Some scholars quibble that too much emphasis is placed on the role of Talas in the Islamification of Central Asia. It is certainly true that the Turkic and Persian tribes of Central Asia did not all immediately convert to Islam in August of 751. Such a feat of mass communication across the deserts, mountains, and steppes would have been utterly impossible before modern mass communications, even if the Central Asian peoples were uniformly receptive to Islam. Nonetheless, the absence of any counterweight to the Arab presence allowed Abbassid influence to spread gradually throughout the region. Within the next 250 years, most of the formerly Buddhist, Hindu, Zoroastrian, and Nestorian Christian tribes of Central Asia had become Muslim. Most significant of all, among the prisoners of war captured by the Abbassids after the Battle of Talas River, were a number of skilled Chinese artisans, including Tou Houan. Through them, first the Arab world and then the rest of Europe learned the art of paper-making. (At that time, the Arabs controlled Spain and Portugal, as well as North Africa, the Middle East, and large swaths of Central Asia.) Soon, paper-making factories sprang up in Samarkand, Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, Delhi... and in 1120 the first European paper mill was established in Xativa, Spain (now called Valencia). From these Arab-dominated cities, the technology spread to Italy, Germany, and across Europe. The advent of paper technology, along with woodcut printing and later movable-type printing, fueled the advances in science, theology, and history of Europes High Middle Ages, which ended only with the coming of the Black Death in the 1340s. Sources: The Battle of Talas, Barry Hoberman. Saudi Aramco World, pp. 26-31 (Sept/Oct 1982). A Chinese Expedition across the Pamirs and Hindukush, A.D. 747, Aurel Stein. The Geographic Journal, 59:2, pp. 112-131 (Feb. 1922). Gernet, Jacque, J. R. Foster (trans.), Charles Hartman (trans.). A History of Chinese Civilization, (1996). Oresman, Matthew. Beyond the Battle of Talas: Chinas Re-emergence in Central Asia. Ch. 19 of In the tracks of Tamerlane: Central Asias path to the 21st Century, Daniel L. Burghart and Theresa Sabonis-Helf, eds. (2004). Titchett, Dennis C. (ed.). The Cambridge History of China: Volume 3, Sui and Tang China, 589-906 AD, Part One, (1979).