The Mullbery Tree by Vincent Van Gogh - Critical Essay

Introduction

The Mulberry Tree by Vincent van Gogh is an oil painting on canvas painted while he was a patient at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole Asylum in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, France, in October of 1889. Van Gogh suffered from mental illness with psychotic episodes and delusions. He had a mental breakdown which leads him to cut off his own ear and fearing another mental breakdown would happen again; he checked himself into the asylum in May 1889. Over the next year as a patient at the asylum, van Gogh would paint about 150 canvases of real-life or still-life matter . Similar to most of his artwork, The Mulberry Tree was done during a period when there was great-awareness and yet many conflicts characterizing the highs and lows of that time. Van Gogh dedicated all his life to art, and he proves this through his letters. The Mulberry Tree illustrates Van Gogh's knowledge of color theory, prowess in art, and his contribution in the new generation of art and direction in painting.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

The Mulberry Tree shows a tree from the garden of the asylum. The tree is at the center of the canvas on a hilly rockside growing alone. The ground is made up of short quick brushstrokes of white and pale browns. It creates a strong contrast to the dark green and brown of the tree trunk. To the right, you see more greens, indicating trees and growth in the distance. The leaves of the tree make up the majority of the painting, orange against the complementary color of the blue sky. It is the beautiful autumn season that gave Vincent the bright orange leaves to paint. The ground and sky are made up of mostly straight diagonal brushstrokes, while the tree leaves are made up of curling spirals of orange and black, sometimes done with the handle of his brush.

This painting is an excellent example of his work and shows an interesting insight into his life. The use of bright colors in his paintings demonstrates his interest in Impressionism and how he led the movement of Post-Impressionism. Artists of the Post-Impressionists era disapproved the Impressionists concern with the spontaneous and natural depiction of light and color. Instead, they preferred to emphasize more emblematic content, formal order, and structure. Nonetheless, they shared a common feature as the Impressionists of putting more emphasis on the artificiality of the picture. Van Gogh believed that color would be an emotional and aesthetic bearer of meaning and independent from form.

The colors of the painting tend to appear in a dramatic contrast will each other, and the swirling shapes can easily be noticed. The Mulberry Tree depicts the dramatic life of Vincent Van Gogh. He becomes the nature that he has created, and paints himself in the flaming clouds, in which a thousand suns endanger the earth with destruction in the startled trees that appear to be crying aloud to Heaven, in the appalling greatness of his plains. This particular art piece by Van Gogh of The Mulberry tree seems to illustrate the startled trees.

While he was at Saint-Remy, Van Gogh wrote a series of letters to his brother Theo Van Gogh. In these letters, he informed his brother about his state of mind, his new works, and the environment in that facility. He admits that he has been in a bad mental state, but that he is progressively recovering. He did not feel alone as he empathized with the other patients that had similar issues. Furthermore, he also indicates in these letters that The Mulberry Tree was one his favorite work in that period. With this dynamic history of Van Gogh's work illustrates just how important The Mulberry was in a way that contrasts with the manner in which it would be viewed at the museum.

The Location of the painting at the Norton-Simon museum and its placement affects the way that viewers see it. The Mulberry Tree is illuminated by the light that enters the museum which and illustrates a rectangle of light in the ceiling. The room that the art piece is place is large and open decorated with several other paintings on the walls. The museum has several rectangular posts that resemble the shape of the roofing. The rectangular posts are then attached with statues of people in different positions. These statues are located just in front of the Mulberry Tree with their arms pointing towards the painting. The Mulberry Tree is positioned in-between two other paintings by Van Gog. It hangs on a beige wall and gives it a glowing look that attracts viewers. The description of the painting is engraved next to it displaying information such as the date painted, the medium used, and a reference to Van Gogh's time at St. Remy.The positioning of The Mulberry Tree in the museum is in such a way that it contrasts with the history of the painting. The beauty of the painting is illuminated by the light colored walls and the overhead lights. Nonetheless, the painting's tension and innate wild strokes are a bit far from the viewer. The calming effect of the museum somewhat contrasts with the essence of the painting. If the painting is seen outside of a museum setting and viewed in the context of the history and that of its maker, its essence is demonstrated in the swirl of brushstrokes. The calming effect of the museum makes the painting seem like an ordinary painting without bringing out the meaning that the painting holds.

Some of Van Gogh's other paintings that he mad while at St. Remy includes Starry Night. This art piece was also a master class and shared several similarities with The Mulberry Tree. The two paintings are related not just because they were painted by the same artist, but because they were both painted while Van Gogh was in a dire mental state. The swirling strokes that are in The Mulberry Tree are similar to those in Starry Night. The kind of tension of an inspired madman that the Mulberry depicts is also witnessed in Starry Night. For some people, the painting represents the struggles of life, the tension that exists between the extremely darker side of nature and the wonderful aspects of nature. Van Gogh's life was a continuous struggle between the two forces, prompting him to come up with paintings of extreme beauty and also propelling him to commit suicide.

Van Gogh's life seemed to be a life of extremes, and the Mulberry Tree illustrated this situation. The painting depicts and illustrates what is extreme in nature. For a common viewer of the art, it appears as a gold tree in the full autumn, flaring against a blue background. However, the deep meaning of the painting signifies beauty an illustration of the amazing powers of nature. The oil used by Van Gogh in the painting shows his mental state and vision of beauty.

The textural richness of oil paint delighted Van Gogh and was the main reason he applied it in his paintings. The three-dimensional appearance of the Mulberry Tree in autumn is due to the heavy application of the oil paint. The twisting yellow tentacles of the tree limbs make it hard to discern the individual autumn leaves. The fiery branches progress upwards and have a frame of a blue sky made from thick, short strokes of blue paint. The space around the tree portrays a dynamism that reflects the electric energy of the tree. In the Mulberry Tree, an ordinary tree was painted exceptionally and brilliantly. Although this painting depicts Van Gogh as a keen observer of the tree and its natural environment, the Mulberry Tree is not a simple record of absolute visual representation. Instead, the artist's use of vigorous brush strokes and vibrant color show the passionate feelings that he had for what he had observed. The importance of this painting was the reason that he wrote letters to his brother and sister admitting why he thought this piece, in particular, was the best of his artwork. The catharsis that Van Gogh experienced while painting The Mulberry Tree produced a beautiful piece that the world is still enjoying over a century later.

Several theories have been advanced over the years about why Vincent Van Gogh did the way he did, and several of them pointed to the way he perceived his surroundings. His vision was affected by the pressure on the brain. Nevertheless, many people appreciate the works of Van Gogh. What makes his work unique at the time is his use of color, and it wasn't until his untimely death that the vibrant color and the vigorous brushwork that he is associated with became popular among the generations of artists that followed. Vincent

Van Gogh was not the only artist that was interested in Japanese prints. Various artists had started coming to Europe and learned several distinct techniques and styles. The post-impressionists were fascinated by the concept of two-dimensional shapes, the use of outlining, and decorative surfaces. These concepts represented a huge shift from the approved art of the period. The black outlines on these prints acted as the keylines that were printed over printed color shapes. Many people did not quite understand this concept. The key lines are also referred to as "holding lines." The influx of the Japanese prints led to the increased exploration of printmaking

Bibliography

Marcus, Jacqueline. "Vincent van Gogh's Mulberry Tree." College English 57, no. 8 (1995), 939. doi:10.2307/378623.

Meier-Graefe, Julius. Modern art: being a contribution to a new system of aesthetics.Vol.1. GP Putnam's sons, 1908."Nineteenth century French art, 1819-1905: from Romanticism to Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Art Nouveau." Choice Reviews Online 45, no. 04 (2007), 45-1842-45-1842. doi:10.5860/choice.45-1842.

West, Shearer, ed. The Bulfinch guide to art history: A comprehensive survey and dictionary of Western art and architecture. Bulfinch Press, 1996.