Critics of His Day
In Vincent’s time critics said that his style was characterized by heavy and sloppy brushstrokes that were crude. They were concerned with realistic paintings rather than exaggerated paintings. Van Gogh was highly unappreciated during his life, but he paved a new way for art.
Albert Aurier
What characterizes his works as a whole is its excess . . . of strength, of nervousness, its violence of expression. In his categorical affirmation of character of things, in his often daring simplification of forms, in his insolence in confronting the sun head-on, in the vehement passion of his drawing and colour, even to the smallest details of his technique, a powerful figure is revealed . . . masculine, daring, very often brutal . . . yet sometimes ingeniously delicate . . . . |
"I like it very much as a work of art in itself, I feel that you create colours with your words; anyway I rediscover my canvases in your article, but better than they really are — richer, more significant." |
Julius Meier-Graefe
Meier-Graeffe was a critic, who thought that Vincent Van Gogh was not a true artist, and that his work was just a repetition of other works and that there was no new motifs behind his works.
"His style was the product of his Paris flower pieces, his weavers from Nuenen, his peasants in Drenthe, but his latest acquisition, Impressionism, left the strongest traces. And the result resembled his earlier work as an event resembles the epic which immortalizes it." |
Source: Cornith, Lovis
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