Van Gogh’s Eyes
Van Gogh, Self-Portrait (1887)
Cruising along the Lungotevere on a Vespa I had time to admire the vast self-portrait of Vincent on the back of a Roman tour bus. The poster, promoting yet another one-man show of his work, had a glorious reproduction of the artist in which every brush stroke was enlarged to about 3”. What struck me, though, were his green eyes. Green? I didn’t know Vincent’s eyes were green so I checked. Yes, he sometimes has green eyes but he sometimes hasn’t: bluish, dark brown, green over brown. Vincent’s eyes change color like his clothes. My guess – and there is no color photograph – is that his eyes were not green. He colored them green to symbolize the fertility of his visual perception.
That reminds me of two royal portraits of Britain’s King Charles I, the one who lost his head. By the time of his death, his head had already been executed by a number of artists. In one portrait by the red-bearded Van Dyck the king has a red beard, in the other by Daniel Mijtens who had a dark brown beard the royal beard is dark brown. This discrepancy, like the color of Van Gogh's eyes or the shape of his nose, screams out for an explanation but art historians have never noticed it....or, perhaps, without an explanation they have ignored it.
Posted 27 Oct 2010: Hand / EyeMijtens, DanielVan DyckVan GoghPortraitureVisual Perception
The EPPH Blog features issues and commentary.
Reader Comments
I have the same problem as Van Gogh did ( I think ) my eyes are in the Hazel ballpark with a heavy blueish background which causes them to appear green in some light what the irish call Gorm, and blue in other light. What the irish also call gorm. it is the color of the sea in its various lighting scales. Not green not blue with a tinge of yellow rust orange? I don’t know but thats my opinion
reidh
03 Jul 2013
My eyes are also green, but they are not really focused on Vincent’s eyes which are looking straight ahead at us. What I’m looking at is his left ear the one that is left, his nose again, and the date the experts say this portrait was painted by Vincent. It says 1887 but I’m going to give it another date of completion since he is looking straight ahead. Let just say this was close to his last self-portrait he had done of himself of how he more than likely looked when going back to Paris to see his brother Theo, Johanna and little baby Vincent van Gogh who was named after him.
This was to be a two week visit that was shortened by Vincent to two days. Friday evening, Saturday, and Sunday morning. After going to Church with Theo Johanna and Little baby Vincent, in the middle of the sermom Vincent went out of church to smoke his pipe and had decided to walk all the way back about twenty five or so miles to where he had come from on the train for this planned visit with his brother and sister-in-law Johanna.
Bob Miller
15 Aug 2016