Van Gogh revisited (11)

This is the 11th in a series on Vincent van Gogh’s works that are featured as part of the works on display at the exhibition titled “Van Gogh in Paris: a Dialogue with Modernism” at Seoul Arts Center. ― ED.

From the winter of 1886, Vincent van Gogh's painting adopted thin strokes, a change evident in Van Gogh’s 1987 oil painting "Portrait of Leonie Rose Davy-Charbuy," also known as "Mother by a Cradle."

Van Gogh used light, pastel-hued colors in this portrait, creating unique, thin strokes with viscous oil paints. The woman is sitting in front of a fireplace with orange and red flames. Van Gogh also employed a lot of complementary colors ― a pink face and green scarf; and yellow and blue on a grayish purple dress ― but white added to the colors produces a soft mood overall.

The woman in the picture, Leonie Rose Davy-Charbuy, was the niece of art dealer Pierre Firmin-Martin. According to the Van Gogh Museum, Van Gogh's brother Theo wrote to his mother, "Vincent has painted a number of singular portraits which have turned out well, but he always does them without payment." This letter implies that Van Gogh may have painted the niece of a well-known art dealer in order to establish a reputation as a portrait painter and to earn a living by doing so.