Describe and explain the techniques that makers use to convey identity. Your answer should be based on two specific case studies.
Introduction (280)
As a concept, identity is difficult to define. This is because identity is a complex mix of several different identities drawn from different aspects of life. Identity is the way that we as humans perceive and express ourselves. It is ever changing and often molded by the multitude of categories that individuals fall into such as gender, culture, class, political views etc. ‘Identities are orienting, they provide a meaning-making lens and focus one’s attention on some but not other features of the immediate context’1. It could be argued that all art objects concern themselves ultimately with identity, either explicitly or implicitly. The same could be said about collections of art, whether institutional or personal, and the critical apparatus that envelops the production and presentation of art.2 Personal experiences can alter how an individual sees themselves or how they are perceived by others meaning that true identity is always in question due to differing perspectives.
Identity in art is a widely explored theme. The purpose of these art works is heavily influenced by the makers behind them. Individual makers exploring self-identity often use mediums such as self-portraiture and photography as way of expressing themselves and showing the aspects of their identity that they wish for viewers to see. With shared/group identity such as culture and religion, art is shared experience in which everyone participates. To explore the techniques used by makers to convey identity I will be using two case studies; for self-identity I will focus on the late artist Vincent Van Gogh who used his painting to explore his own identity, and the Karo Tribe of Ethiopia whose use of body art marks their shared identity.
Case study- Vincent Van Gogh (750)
Vincent Van Gogh was a post-impressionist painter known for his body of work notable for its beauty, emotion and colour. Though virtually unknown throughout his life, he highly influenced 20th century art. In the space of 10 years, van Gogh produced more than 43 self- portraits as both paintings and drawings. He once stated in a letter to his sister that he was “looking for a deeper likeness than that obtained by a photographer”. He later wrote to his brother “people say, and I am willing to believe it, that it is hard to know yourself. But it is not easy to paint yourself, either. The portraits painted by Rembrandt are more than a view of nature, they are more like a revelation”. 3From this it is clear that van Gogh’s tendency to create self-portraits spawned from a desire to explore his own identity in order to accurately represent himself on canvas. Van Gogh was a tortured artist that aimed to convey his emotional and spiritual state in each of his artworks. His use of colour in combination with his visible brushstrokes emphasise van Gogh’s personal expression and brings his work to life.4 Van Gogh’s mental instability provided the frenzied source for the emotional renderings of his surroundings and imbued each image with a deeper psychological reflection and resonance.5
Colour
Van Gogh once said “I know for sure that I have an instinct for colour, and that it will come to me more and more, that painting is in the very marrow of my bones.” The use and emphasis of colour is visble in many on van Goghs works. Van Gogh used color for its “symbolic and expressive values” rather than to reproduce light and literal surroundings. His use striking colors, unrefined brush strokes, and distorted shapes and contours, express his disturbed mind. He suffered two distinct episodes of react. Van Gogh’s mental state directly affected his artistic work as he used colour to express his emotions allowing the viewer to deeply analyse his unconscious mind. As van Gogh’s mental health declined his colors lost intensity and his lines appeared agitated.
Self portraits
Using self-portraiture to explore self-identity was a running theme throughout van Gogh’s work. Van Gogh used his self-portraits to highlight his mental instability and to represent his hardships. This was because he did not want to hide anything from his viewers, he wanted then to understand his life and see him for who he truly was. In his self-portraits, van Gogh does not shy away from presenting himself as weak/unstable, many artists use self-portraits to show how they would like to be remembered, with van Gogh showing that he is an imperfect and tortured artist.
Vincent van Gogh Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear. 1889
Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait evokes a sad and somber but calm feeling in the viewers. Van Gogh applied mainly cool colours (especially cool greens) throughout the self portrait, and loose expressive brushstrokes, which create a calming effect in the viewers. He painted himself with a somber facial expression and a strong intensity in his eyes, focusing intently outward, with some degree of unspoken emotion.
(http://valeriethongsova.blogspot.com/2010/08/self-identity-2-vincent-van-gogh.html)
Oil on canvas – In Van Gogh’s painting, short and straight/ vertical strokes were used throughout. The overlapping vertical lines made him look stiff and the lines also suggest a sense of anxiety/tension. – Dominant shades of green give the painting a cold/chilly atmosphere, which could suggest the loneliness experienced by the artist. Close-up portrayal of the face helps to direct our attention to the artist’s emotions.
Vincent van Gogh Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear. 1889 Oil on canvas – Van Gogh appears distraught; probably suffering from the earlier accident/fight with Paul Gauguin. A solemn/sorrowful atmosphere envelops the room. There is no eye contact between Van Gogh with the audience and this further emphasized his sense of loneliness & depression. – The overlapping strokes used also appear like a fence that separates him from the viewer. He is alone in his suffering and we are unable to reach out to him.
https://slideplayer.com/slide/5743272/
Auto-mutilation became a part of his medical history. In 1888 Vincent’s mental health was very unstable. As a result of psychotic crises, Vincent van Gogh was hospitalized several times. His state of mind was very weak and during a breakdown, he mutilated his ear. Van Gogh cut off the lower half of his left ear and gave it to a prostitute. After a few weeks he was able to paint self-portrait with bandaged ear and pipe which shows him in serene composure.
The fervor and fragility of Van Gogh’s life are told on this canvas by stark contrasts of color and restless brushstrokes.
Van Gogh worked on a second self-portrait at about the same time. Although its background is animated with swirling brushstrokes, the more muted color scheme lends the image a calmer aspect. The artist believed, however, that the painting seen here captured his “true character.”
https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/van-gogh-self-portrait.html
This painting is a portrait of Van Gogh’s internal crisis. His piercing eyes hold you transfixed but their focus is not on what is happening outside, but inside his head. The energy of the picture builds from the eyes which are the most tightly drawn feature. The rhythms of his brushstrokes spread across the planes of his face, gaining energy as they ripple through his jacket and hair, and finally burst into the churning turbulence of the ice-blue background. The cool blues and greens that he uses are normally calm colors, but when they are contrasted with his vivid red hair and beard they strike a jarring note which perfectly sets the psychological tone of the portrait. This is a very courageous image of a man trying to hold himself together as he wrestles with his inner fears.
http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/portraits/van_gogh.htm
Van Gogh’s self-portraits play significant clinical importance. Vincent van Gogh was born one year to the day after a stillborn brother of the identical name, including the middle name, Willem. In the parish register van Gogh was given the same number twenty-nine as his predecessor brother. Van Gogh’s fantasies of death and rebirth, of being a double and a twin, contributed to both his psychopathology and his creativity. Van Gogh’s self-portraits are regarded as relevant to his being a replacement child (Blum, 2009).
Meissner (1993) hypothesized that the self-portraits of Vincent van Gogh are seen as repeated and unresolved efforts at self-exploration and self-definition in an attempt to add a sense of continuity and cohesion to a fragile and fragmented self-experience. The portraits are painted in mirror perspective; Vincent’s search for identity is thus seen as mediated by the dynamics of the mirroring phenomenon.
During the last few years of his life, his paintings were characterized by halos and the color yellow. Critics have ascribed these aberrations to innumerable causes, including chronic solar injury, glaucoma, and cataracts (Lee, 1981).
http://www.dailynews.lk/2015/09/22/features/psychological-reflections-vincent-van-gogh’s-art
Landscapes
He applied the paint more violently with thicker layers. Van Gogh was drawn to objects in nature under stress: whirling suns, twisted cypress trees, and surging mountains. Although van Gogh’s illness emerged more violently he produced brilliant works as The Reaper, Cypresses, The Red Vineyard, and his famed Starry Night.
The Starry Night
In Starry Night (1889) the whole world seems engulfed by circular movements. The Starry Night is undoubtedly van Gogh’s most mysterious picture. The Starry Night which resides as his most popular work and one of the most influence pieces in history. The swirling lines of the sky are a possible representation of his mental state. The Starry Night embodies an inner, subjective expression of van Gogh’s response to nature. Vincent van Gogh once said “Looking at the stars always makes me dream. We take death to reach a star.”
http://www.dailynews.lk/2015/09/22/features/psychological-reflections-vincent-van-gogh’s-art
Suicidal gestures by Vincent depicted in his last paintings. He painted vast fields of wheat under dark and stormy skies, commenting, “It is not difficult to express here my entire sadness and extreme loneliness”. In one of his last paintings, Wheat Field With Crows, the black birds fly in a starless sky, and three paths lead nowhere. It could be interpreted as the emptiness that existed in his heart.
http://www.dailynews.lk/2015/09/22/features/psychological-reflections-vincent-van-gogh’s-art
Van Gogh’s inimitable art was defined by its powerful, dramatic and emotional style. The artist’s concern for human suffering is in somber, melancholy study of art. Maybe he tried to explain the struggle between the man and the human nature, the reality and his unconscious mental conflicts. Van Gogh once said: “We spend our whole lives in unconscious exercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of words.”
Point 2- Shared Identity (200)
What is shared identity?
Which techniques are often used by makers to convey shared identity?