Descriptive Paper

The emotion of "Dr. Paul Gachet"

Nina Yang

W&CIII

Ms. Guarino

09/20/2014

   Do you believe that every painting is alive? That’s because they contain the emotion and feelings the artists want to express. The artist Van Gogh likes to use two opposite colors to represent his emotions in his paintings. In Vincent Van Gogh's painting "Dr. Paul Gachet", the man’s dried face and fleshless body along with the dominant color blue throughout the painting express a feeling of sorrow.

   In the painting, there is an old man, who is Dr. Pail Gachet sitting behind the red table and using one of his hands to brace his head up. His eyes seem glazed and hopeless. There is something bright leaking out of his eyes and that might be his tears. The wrinkles on his eyes can show he is a hoary and aged man. He is also looking somewhere else instead of looking at the artist. This increases the sorrow in the painting.

   The background color of this painting is blue and there is a bit of bright red in the foreground of the painting, which is the color of the table. The sorrow emotion is pretty obvious in this painting since even the color of the old man’s jacket is  blue. The contrast of the dark blue and bright red even increases the depressed feeling the artist wants to express.

   Van Gogh’s painting is the realistic life of him. He has a mental disorder, which caused him goes into the psychiatric hospital. He met Dr. Paul Gachet who was Van Gogh’s personal doctor. Dr. Paul Gachet was the last doctor Van Gogh met before his death. He was a friend with Van Gogh. However, Van Gogh also had some personal disagreements with Dr. Paul Gachet and he thought Dr. Paul Gachet was even crazier than he was. Therefore, in Van Gogh’s last painting, which is Dr. Paul Gachet, he drew his doctor as a dull and depressed figure. There were many reasons why Van Gogh had disagreements with Dr. Paul Gachetd. According to a Chinese art website, some people thinks that’s because Van Gogh was really crazy at that time so he thought everyone was insane like him. Other people thinks that’s because he fell in love with doctor’s daughter and Dr. Paul Gachet would like someone paint for him. However, he didn’t want his daughter marry someone who is mad. Then, he and Van Gogh had disagreements. (http://culture.jwb.com.cn/art/2013/8/6/art_16448_3343806.html)

   Despite what people have said about Van Gogh, his painting “Dr. Paul Gachet” really contains a great sorrow and depressed not only from the dominant color blue, but also from the man’s spiritless face. As Van Gogh’s last painting in his life, this painting perfectly describe Van Gogh’s painting style which he likes to use two different type of colors to express his feeling of the painting. Besides that, “Dr. Paul Gachet” also faultlessly concludes Van Gogh’s whole life as an artist.