Vincent van Gogh
Emillee Carr
Fourth grade ELA/Art
Fall 2013
What can we learn about how art can be used to
express emotion through the works and life of
Vincent van Gogh?
Learning objectives:
• Students will observe and describe selected artworks, using art
vocabulary to express personal responses.
• Students will listen to and analyze lyrics to Don McLean's song
“Vincent”
• Students will appropriately discuss artwork and song in small
groups and as a class.
• Students will write similes and metaphors describing the feelings of
Vincent van Gogh’s paintings.
• Students will create self-portraits in the style of Vincent van Gogh.
Vincent Van Gogh
• Born March 30, 1853 in the Netherlands
• Began painting in his late twenties.
• Self-taught painter. He practiced, explored,
and experimented to develop his skills and
style.
• His work included self portraits, landscapes,
still-life, portraits and paintings of cypresses,
wheat fields and sunflowers.
• His work is notable for its rough beauty,
emotional honesty and bold color
• Most of what we know about van Gogh is from letters that he wrote to
his brother, Theo.
• Van Gogh led a tumultuous personal life.
– Prone to bouts of anger and depression, and many speculate he
suffered from mental illness and seizures.
• After an argument with a friend Van Gogh was so upset that he cut part
of his ear off.
• After this checked himself into a psychiatric hospital where he painted
some of his most famous works: Stary Night and Irises.
• Many of his self-portraits reflect his life-long struggle with these difficult
emotions.
• He died at age 37
Don McLean’s “Vincent”
written about Vincent van Gogh
• What to highlight on lyrics page:
–
–
–
–
Meaning
Things you want to know more about
Things you think are interesting
Connections in the song to what you know about his
life (hint: “I noticed a painting where he had a
bandage on his ear!”
Take notes on the lyrics page provided. We will be
discussing this in small groups and as a class! You will be
turning this in 
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkvLq0TYiwI
Expressing Van Gogh's inspiration for the
painting. One line says :
"Look out on a summer's day."
This is giving Van Gogh's vantage point
looking out from the asylum at Saint-Remy.
When he first entered the asylum, he
painted mainly from his room or the
courtyard garden, but later went further
afield to paint.
Starry, starry night.
Paint your palette blue and grey,
Look out on a summer's day,
With eyes that know the darkness in my
soul.
Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and the daffodils,
Catch the breeze and the winter chills,
In colors on the snowy linen land.
These are references to other Van Gogh
paintings.
Flaming Flowers: The Sunflower Series
Swirling Clouds: Starry Night
Field of Amber Grain: Wheat Field with
Crows
Weathered Faces: The Potato Eaters
Starry, starry night.
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze, Swirling
clouds in violet haze,
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue.
Colors changing hue, morning field of
amber grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving
hand.
Metaphors and Similes
Metaphor: a figure of speech in which a word or
phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is
not literally applicable. (her eyes are coal)
Simile: a figure of speech involving the comparison
of one thing with another thing of a different kind,
used to make a description more emphatic or vivid
(e.g., as brave as a lion, crazy like a fox ).
Self portrait (1889) by Vincent van Gogh
(one simile + one metaphor)
Think:
• The look on
his face
• How is he
feeling?
• What do his
eyes say?
• Simile=
Like or as
Irises by Vincent van Gogh
(one simile + one metaphor)
Hints:
What do
you feel
when you
look at
these
flowers?
Simile=
Like or as
Color gives feeling!
Van Gogh was always thinking about the effects of color in his work.
• many gradations of a single color.
• brought colors into dialogue to make his paintings more compelling and eloquent
• Van Gogh became increasingly convinced that colors in themselves had expressive
power. For him, color was the ideal means of conveying an atmosphere or an emotion.
Impressionism:
• a style or movement in painting
originating in France in the 1860s,
characterized by a concern with
depicting the visual impression of the
moment, esp. in terms of the shifting
effect of light and color.
• a literary or artistic style that seeks to
capture a feeling or experience rather
than to achieve accurate depiction.
Lets make art!
Use oil pastels on 8 ½ x 11 paper
Must convey emotion through color
Must use Impressionist style (short lines) of
Vincent van Gogh
Can be portrait, scene, or abstract
Reflection:
• Describe one painting or aspect of Vincent van Gogh’s
life that you used as inspiration.
• What mood does your artwork depict? How did you
express your mood in your artwork?