Compare Van Gogh 'Chair And Tracey Emin 'My Bed'
Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853 in Holland, (Cummings 2015:260). He had a chequered working life and “pursued various vocations, including that of an art dealer and clergyman, before deciding to become an artist at the age of twenty-seven”, (The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2010). Significant historical changes took place during his lifetime, including the Industrial Revolution. Materials that artists used became available commercially, (The Van Gogh Museum 2015). Access to pre-mixed tubes of coloured paints was manufactured, which impacted his colour pallets, but, conversely, inferior pigments have caused these paints to slowly fade, (Kulkarni 2015).
Van Gogh was a profuse letter writer. He regularly wrote to his brother, Theo, (Sweetman 1990:114). His sister-in-law, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger saved his correspondence and art following his death because Theo wanted to burn them. Johanna’s compilation of his letters and art led to him becoming recognised as “the greatest of the Post-Impressionists”, (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2019).
Van Gogh began painting around 1882 and was self-taught, (Cummings 2015:260). His work passed through various phases and styles, initially being influenced by the Barbizon School artists paintings of impoverished working peasants and rural landscapes, (The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2010). Gombrich (1995:544) records that the underlying social message of Barbizon artists, like Millet, interested him.
In Paris 1886 he met artists including Degas, Gauguin and Seurat. He experimented with Pointillism and other stroke techniques, he also “lightened and brightened the colours he used”, (The National Gallery 2019). The group of artists called themselves “the impressionists of the “petit boulevard” – as opposed to Monet and Renoir, the increasingly successful impressionists of the “grand boulevard” – and saw themselves as revolutionary social outsiders who took every physical and mental risk to create a new art”, (Jones 2016).
His style was: “influenced by Impressionism and Post-impressionism” … through “artists such as Gauguin, Pissarro, Monet, and Bernard”, (Artble 2019).
His approach and layout were impacted by Japanese prints, he talks of this in letters to Theo, stating,
“After some time your vision changes, you see with a more Japanese eye, you feel colour differently”, (The van Gogh Museum 2019).
This combination of creative inspiration led to his singular style of painting vibrant impasto pictures in oils, which the Encyclopaedia Britannica (2019) describes as “…striking colour, emphatic brushwork, and contoured forms…”
According to Jones (2016), van Gogh’s artistic style and prolific painting were provoked by mental instability. Van Gogh was addicted to absinthe and chemicals like camphor and turpentine, which would have contributed to mental instability, (Loftus et al 1991:21). His mental illness immensely impacted on his life and in his many letters, his sickness, loneliness, depression, feelings of rejection, poor self-worth and volatile relationships, are well documented, (Arnold 2013:73-99).
In 1888 Van Gogh moved to Arles, Provence and was joined there by Gauguin. He considered Gauguin was his mentor, but his relationship with Gauguin was filled with problems. It became volatile and completely broke down after only a few months. Gauguin dismissed van Gogh’s dream of forming an artistic community. This idea had been van Gogh’s obsession. He felt let down and disillusioned with Gauguin, (Roos 2019). Van Gogh became increasingly mentally unstable. He is said to have threatened Gauguin with a knife and he subsequently cut off a part of his own ear. Gauguin went back to Paris soon after the quarrel and never saw van Gogh again, (The Van Gogh Museum 2013).
It was during Gauguin’s stay in Arles, whilst experiencing intense psychological pressure and conflict that van Gogh started two interlinked paintings of chairs in 1888 and continued to work on them Gauguin’s departure, (The Van Gogh Museum 2013). Van Gogh was an admirer of Charles Dickens. It was an obituary with an emotive image of Dickens empty chair, that inspired van Gogh to paint his own empty chairs, (Parker1996:171).
Van Gogh wrote to his brother on January 17, 1889, mentioning that he had painted“…a study of mine of a lighted candle and two novels (one yellow, the other pink) lying on an empty chair (really Gauguin’s chair), … in red and green”.
Van Gogh continues to say he had also been working“…on its pendant, my own empty chair, a white deal chair with a pipe and a tobacco pouch. In these two studies, as in others, I have tried for an effect of light by means of clear colour…”, (Jansen 2014:636).
The National Gallery describes the paintings as a pair, that “were to be hung together, with one chair turned to the right, the other to the left” (see fig 1 and 2 for images and positioning). It also states, “Both chairs function as surrogate portraits, representing the personalities and distinct artistic outlooks of the two artists”. Therefore, these are symbolic portraits, absent of the men, but the furniture and objects being representative of them. The empty chairs symbolise ideas of death and loss, (Eiss 2014:397)
The painting style is impasto using oil, with dark curved outlines and the use of complementary colours. “Van Gogh’s chair is simple and rustic”, on a tiled floor with a box of sprouting onions in the background. “Gauguin’s is an elegant and finely carved armchair”. It appears in a more formal luxurious room. Van Gogh’s chair is “shown in bright daylight whereas Gauguin’s, was painted at night and is illuminated by a candle and gaslight”, (National Gallery 2019).
Art critic, Jones J. (2016) suggests van Gogh’s chair embodies ideas that he saw himself as ‘humble and practical, a reliable friend’. The pipe and pouch symbolise desired peace of mind. Van Gogh felt smoking a pipe might remedy his melancholia and inner darkness. Margolis Maurer (1998:79-81) also discussed the painting, suggesting the centrality, colours and simplicity of the subject show his identification with the local peasants and simple, outdoor life. She conjectures the sprouting onions in the coffin-like box with his name on it, depicts hope in the face of the death of his dreams. She suggests Gauguin’s chair and the colours, reflect his depth of passion and van Gogh’s perception of Gauguin as the educated, enlightened mentor, who should have illuminated and led him forward as an artist. The candle could represent a funeral candle, alight, but ready to be snuffed out, like their relationship, (Margolis Maurer 1998:80-81).
Blum (1956:316-317) and Eiss (2014:397) interprets the symbolism in the paintings using Freudian psychoanalysis. Both discuss the idea that van Gogh and Gauguin’s empty chair portraits symbolise death, castration and murderous feelings. His sexual jealousy, homoerotic attraction and a deep-seated fear of replacement (related to his dead brother of the same name), caused conflict and sparked the severe mental illness in 1888, leading to his death.
Tracey Emin was born in 1963 in London. Emin grew up in Margate, but her childhood was troubled and emotionally dysfunctional (Luck 2012). She rarely attended school after 13 and was raped at 14, which impacted her psychologically and psychosexually, (Fanthome, C. 2006). Emin had many painful relationships and some traumatic abortions. She has struggled with mental illness, including depression. Manatakis (2019).
Emin is described as one of the “contemporary artists popularly referred to as YBAs (Young British Artists). This group of artists, also including Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas and Angus Fairhurst, often exhibited together …”, (Hunkin 2007). Much of her work has overt sexual themes and is autobiographical in nature. It has created a debate surrounding what people think of as art in the postmodern era, (Cumming 2015:399). The era in which Emin lives and works has facilitated her success as an artist. She can create provocative, controversial, shocking and sexually explicit work, which would not have been accepted from a woman prior to this period. The range of work she creates is varied and in multiple media. She draws, writes, paints, makes film and video, uses photography, textiles and sewing, as well as making installations and sculptures, (Fanthome 2006:33). Her work has been called confessional art because Emin’s autobiographical self-revelation and lived experience is central to it. Her identity and concept of self are expressed through her work, which is why Fanthome (2006:33) suggests that the artist herself is often criticised, not just her work.
Emin is influenced by many artists and art movements, for example, her conceptual ‘Readymade’ installations, like “My Bed”, draw upon the legacy of Duchamp’s artwork, (Tate 2019). She admires the art of Expressionist, Egon Schiele. His art is very raw and sexual in nature, which Emin emulates in her work, but as a way of presenting inner herself, (Spence 2015). In an interview, Emin states;
“There was one tiny Schiele painting and suddenly my whole world opened, … I related to it, because it was about showing emotion. You could see the anguish he was going through: I am in pain. ‘I am drawing this, but I am drawing this in a different way, because I see it differently from other people. I see it through the eyes of pain. ’” (Jones 2017).
Her controversial installation, “My Bed”, (see Fig 5), was created in 1998. It consisted of her own unmade bed and detritus (see Fig 6) including dirty linen, used condoms, bloodstained underwear and a blue offcut of carpet, (Sherwin 2017). “My Bed” was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999. The publicity put her in the public eye. Many critics and the public questioned its validity as a work of art, (Cumming 2015:399). In Italy, ironically, her ‘conceptual piece “My Bed” was ruined…’ when a museum cleaner, ‘…believing it had been vandalised, tidied up the bed’, (Saul 2014). In 2014 it sold for 2. 2 million pounds and it continues to create fierce debate, (Mead 2015). However, despite ongoing criticism, Emin is confident of herself as an artist. She is quoted by the Tate as saying ‘If I believe they are art then they are art. I’m the artist, I decide the parameters. ’, (Tate 2007).
Emin was inspired to use her own bed as art after she stayed in bed for a week, depressed and suicidal following a traumatic breakdown of an intimate relationship. Reflecting on that emotional meltdown and her inspiration for “My Bed”, she said; ‘I just suddenly thought, ‘This is horrific. ’ And then it all turned around for me. It stopped being horrific and started being beautiful. Because I hadn’t died, had I?’, (Lempesis 2019).
She moved her empty bed and all the detritus on and around it from her council flat and exhibited it publicly as a representation of her ‘raw, unpolished emotion’ and pain in that time, (Fuchs 2007:25). She has presented various incarnations of “My Bed” alongside selected artist’s works, like Francis Bacon, William Blake and JMW Turner, whose lives and art complement her installation, (Lempesis 2019).
