Van Gogh’s The One-Eyed Man
This portrait of a one-eyed man was done the same year as The Poet, a painting already shown here to be a representation of Van Gogh's poetic self. In choosing a man who may or may not have been one-eyed in life fas the subject for a portrait, Van Gogh symbolizes the two modes of poetic observation, sight and insight, in one man. The open eye, of course, represents observation of the exterior world while the closed one represents insight.
Van Gogh, The One-Eyed Man (1888) Oil on canvas. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
Click image to enlarge.
The man smokes, moreover, a traditional symbol in painting for artistic imagination.
Van Gogh would have seen similar use of both symbols in many earlier works of art before painting his own.
See the open and closed eyes of Donatello’s David and Goliath.
More Works by Van Gogh
Notes:
Publication Date: 20 Apr 2010
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