OLD PEASANT (PATIENCE ESCALIER)
By VINCENT VAN GOGH
"OLD PEASANT (PATIENCE ESCALIER)" (27.3"/22.3" inches) oil on canvas, Painted by VINCENT VAN GOGH in August 1888 (Arles). Now collected by Mrs. Chaester Beatty, London.
COMING to Provence from Paris- VAN GOGH rediscovered the peasantry which had been his chief subject during his first years as a painter in Holland. This Mediterranean peasant is formed of the sun as well as the earth, his substance glows, without losing its earthy brownness, his blue cape and the burnt orange background are an inversion of the Provençal sky & earth.
Most compelling, however, is the profound image of the man which, speaking to us at first through the & then through the whole face, also conveys his strength through the eyes masterfully drawn hands, & finally through the posture, the costume, the very partitioning of the space which he dominates. Of a rugged force, of a great simplicity & frankness in its large aspect, the portrait is focused upon a face of an unsoundable depth & complication.
Every feature is a world with its own shapes, colours, movement, and character, all the features uniting in the gravity of this ancient peasant nature fixed in earnest attention. The sheer power of representation is astounding, the luminosity of the red fringed eyes, the colourful shagginess of the beard, all infused with the robustness & vitality of the varied brushwork which seems to follow pre-ordained paths & evokes an organic rhythm of the head.
Great taste let us say more rightly great understanding appears in the gradation & contrast of the parts with respect to fullness of detail, the supreme region of the face, which contains all the colours of the painting like the palette source, under the brown shading brim, uniform in colour, the yellow hat above.
Simple though more broken, the blue smock, complementary to the background in colour, still more divided, & related in its many folds to the streaking of the beard, the three red spots of the cravat & the sleeves in a strong, concentrated pattern enclosing the hands & supporting the head.
This is perhaps the last realistic portrait of a peasant in the tradition of Western painting. It is perhaps also the only great portrait of a peasant.
VINCENT VAN GOGH PAINTINGS