Vincent van Gogh was a competitive painter, always looking closely at the work of other artists for any scrap of knowledge that he could utilise in his own practice. So when he famously claimed that “Frans Hals must have had 27 blacks”, there was a huge compliment hidden within the vinegary bitterness.
Van Gogh’s original comment, an acknowledgement of his countryman’s skill at finding subtle colour shifts in passages where lesser artists would have laid down a blanket of tone, came in a letter sent to his brother Theo on 20 October 1885 in which he also declared Hals as “a colourist among the colourists, a colourist like Veronese, like Rubens, like Delacroix, like Velázquez”.
In another letter sent a week earlier, Van Gogh had first written of his joy at seeing a painting by Hals and named him alongside Rembrandt as one of the true greats. “What particularly struck me when I saw the old Dutch paintings again is that they were usually painted quickly,” added Van Gogh. “These great masters like Hals, Rembrandt… as far as possible just put it straight down – and didn’t come back to it so very much… If it worked, they left it alone.”
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Denne historien er fra October 2021-utgaven av Artists & Illustrators.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Still life IN 3 HOURS
Former BP Portrait Award runner-up FELICIA FORTE guides you through a simple, structured approach to painting alla prima that tackles dark, average and light colours in turn
Movement in composition
Through an analysis of three masterworks, landscape painter and noted author MITCHELL ALBALA shows how you can animate landscape composition with movement
Shane Berkery
The Irish-Japanese artist talks to REBECCA BRADBURY about the innovative concepts and original colour combinations he brings to his figurative oil paintings from his Dublin garden studio
The Working Artist
Something old, something new... Our columnist LAURA BOSWELL has expert advice for balancing fresh ideas with completing half-finished work
Washes AND GLAZES
Art Academy’s ROB PEPPER introduces an in-depth guide to incorporating various techniques into your next masterpiece. Artwork by STAN MILLER, CHRIS ROBINSON and MICHELE ILLING
Hands
LAURA SMITH continues her new four-part series, which encourages you to draw elements of old master paintings, and this month’s focus is on capturing hands
Vincent van Gogh
To celebrate The Courtauld’s forthcoming landmark display of the troubled Dutch master’s self-portraits, STEVE PILL looks at the stories behind 10 of the most dramatic works on display
BRING THE drama
Join international watercolour maestro ALVARO CASTAGNET in London’s West End to paint a dramatic street scene
Serena Rowe
The Scottish painter tells STEVE PILL why time is precious, why emotional responses to colour are useful, and how she finds focus every day with the help of her studio wall
Bill Jacklin
Chatting over Zoom as he recovers from appendicitis, the Royal Academician tells STEVE PILL about classic scrapes in New York and his recent experiments with illustration
