The Sower

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28433765@N07/4995032325/ 

The cycle of life and death flooded Vincent Van Gogh’s mind as he thought of suicide late in his life. His art became metaphorical life cycle depictions through harvest themes. Van Gogh developed a liking for Jean-Francois Millet’s artistic style with the inclusion of biblical parables. Van Gogh began adopting this method in his infamous Sower and the Sheath work. Vincent was a religious man who enjoyed depicting complex parables in simple, rural contexts, and was an aficionado for using other artists as a model for his own works. Vincent Van Gogh utilized the artistic styles of Millet in his rendition of The Sower, he was inspired by Millet’s simple, religious themes. 

Van Gogh first discovered Millet while working for his paternal uncles as an art dealer during his adolescence. Dealing with paintings granted him with an appreciation of rural settings at a young age. He admired Millet’s use of peasant settings and subjects for his artwork. Van Gogh first associated Millet’s work with religious references in a letter written from Paris in 1875, “When I entered entered the hall of the Hotel Drouot, where they were exhitbited, I felt like saying, ‘Take off your shoes, for the place where you are standing is Holy Ground”. 

Van Gogh was also an avid reader of art journals. Ernest Chesneau produced an article on Millet that sparked the interest of Vincent. The article described Millet as an artist who stressed humanist and Christian values as noted in the quote about Millet’s Sower, “...This man, a minister of heaven, who holds in his hand and throws to the wind, with the faith of an apostle, the riches of the earth...” Van Gogh saw Millet as “the archetype of a believer” who could “paint the doctrine without painting overly biblical pictures. 

This style inspired Van Gogh. Religion was one of the few things that brought solace to Van Gogh’s troubled life. He found Millet’s Sower to be strikingly similar to the passage in the Bible Matthew, 13:37-43. 

Van Gogh first interpretation of The Sower was inspired by his move to Arles, France. He was surrounded by rural landscapes that Van Gogh thought were “the real Millet...absolutely rustic and homely”. Van Gogh’s rendition differed from Millet’s in that it focused on the background more than the sower. Millet’s version devotes most of the canvas to the Sower picture. Millet also chose to use simple colors in the background to ensure that the Sower would remain the focal point. However, as characteristic of most impressionist, Van Gogh painted the background of his rendition with complex color schemes and vivid pigments. He made the focal point the background in order to veil religious messages, as Millet did. 

Van Gogh’s life was a constant battle with invasive thoughts, but religion was one provider of solace. He enjoyed expressing religious values in simple, rural settings. Van Gogh used Millet’s clever style of veiling religious messages in his own rendition of Millet’s The Sower.

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