Vincent van Gogh Head of a skeleton with a burning cigarette
by Vintage Collectables
Title
Vincent van Gogh Head of a skeleton with a burning cigarette
Artist
Vintage Collectables
Medium
Painting - Painting
Description
Vincent van Gogh Head of a skeleton with a burning cigarette.
F212: Jacob Baart de la Faille (1970) [1928] The Works of Vincent van Gogh. His Paintings and Drawings., Amsterdam: J.M. Meulenhoff, no. 212.
JH999 : Jan Hulsker (1980), The Complete Van Gogh, Oxford: Phaidon, no. 999.
The painting cannot be dated precisely as there no sources. However, at the beginning of 1886, Vincent enrolled in drawing claseses at the Academy of Art, Antwerp, under Charles Verlat, where training was given by copying plaster casts and where a skeleton was available as an aid. It seems likely that this drawing and another of a Hanging Skeleton with a Cat F1361 dates from this time (Hulsker p. 218).
The surviving studies from this time are numbered JH980 to JH1018 in Hulsker's catalogue. Hulsker calls them "ungainly" and comments it is not difficult to see why Vincent's instructors found fault with him. Sketch of a Right Arm and Shoulder F1693j is typical. The drawing classes lasted only a few weeks.
The museum page comments that the burning cigarette was probably intended as a joke, perhaps also as a comment on conservative academic practice. Studies such as Female Nude, Standing, Seen from the Side F1699, where Vincent emphasises the thick-set features of the Brabant peasant women he was familiar with over the classic nude, attest Vincent's different vision (Naifeh and Smith, p. 485-6 n. 350).
Naifeh and Smith set the painting in the context of Vincent's worries over his deteriorating health (p 489 n 419). Vincent was a heavy smoker and keenly aware of the damage the habit might be doing his health.
Letter 558:To Theo van Gogh. Antwerp, on or about Thursday, 4 February 1886. Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. Van Gogh Museum. "What the doctor tells me is that I absolutely must live better, and that I have to take more care of myself with my work until I’m stronger. It’s total debilitation. Well I’ve made it worse by smoking a lot, which I did all the more because then one isn’t troubled by one’s empty stomach."
Letter 760:To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 21 April 1889. Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. Van Gogh Museum. "Now you well understand that if alcohol was certainly one of the great causes of my madness, then it came very slowly and would go away slowly too, should it go, of course. Or if it comes from smoking, same thing."
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December 4th, 2015
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