Analytical Blog Example

      Here's an example of an analytical blog post from the first time that I taught this class.  As you can see, it was about the same type of year, but this student was already delving into her essential questions.  You can do the same, or you can write about a literary device, strategy, or theme.  Just make sure that you are analyzing, not summarizing.  Have fun with it! 👀

Essential Question 9/26/14: What was van Gogh's process and motivation?

As I am coming to the last few pages of Letters to Theo, van Gogh's motivation is becoming more intense and his process, well, a little bit crazed. What was at the beginning a sweet, heartwarming story about a simple painter trying to make his way has taken a sharp turn into something much darker. At the point I am now reading, van Gogh has been hospitalized on and off during the year due to “overexcitement”, hacking off part of his ear, and thinking that his friends want to kill him. Although this has been a hard portion to read, I think that van Gogh's crazed, "overexcited" state has given me a lot of insight into who he is as an artist.

Van Gogh is, at his essence, a hard worker. Throughout his letters he has accounted the ways that he strives to bring light and life and beauty to the people through his artwork. He works day and night sometimes; usually his schedule is twelve hours of work and eleven of sleep with meal breaks in between if he can afford food that week. As I continue reading, van Gogh's working day goes from "I work only from nine until six..."(11) to "My money ran out on Thursday and I have lived for four days on twenty three cups of coffee, with bread for which I still owe." (393) Needless to say, his process has steadily gotten more intense and unhealthy as the book progresses. Van Gogh’s work day mostly consists of spending his money on paints instead of food and feeling like he cannot eat because he has not earned his bread by selling artwork. In general, this book is getting incredibly sad. I wish I could say it all turns out well in the end.

Upon closer look, one can see that van Gogh’s creation of art was never a cookie cutter process. One of his biggest desires was to be a master colorist, so the paints he used were often the most important part of his artwork. He thought very highly of his colors- he said that one should never use pure blue in flesh because it looks dead and woody, that the browns in leather are truly purple and red, that the mood of a person determines the colors of the portrait. The colors were certainly a big part of working for him. In one of his many paragraphs about the effect of colour, and one of my personal favorite passages, van Gogh describes his intentions behind The Night Cafe. He says “I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity through red and green.” (383) and goes on to detail his intentions behind the placement and use of blood red, dark yellow, lemon yellow, green, orange, and violet. Van Gogh treasures his pigments as the life of his artwork, and they are by far the most important elements of his art.

For context, here are two of van Gogh's self portraits- one of his first, about ten years after he started writing to Theo, and one of his last, just a few months before he committed suicide. Note the difference in colors- the first was warm, loose, and precise, whereas the last is cold and a little harsh. Notice how he uses blue in the flesh, which as I mentioned before, he warned against because of the dead look it gives the subject.

 

Self Portrait with Dark Felt Hat. Spring 1886, Oil on Canvas, Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam.

Self Portrait. September 1889, Oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.