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Project: An illustrative and interactive timeline of Van Gogh’s painting materials

Description

During his short but prolific life and career, Vincent van Gogh produced more than 2,000 artworks, including close to 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches [1,2]. He was also a passionate letter writer and more than 900 written exchanges with his family, friends and contemporaries have survived [3]. These letters are a window to Van Gogh's intimate universe but also into his day-to-day practice, the paintings he was working on, the paint orders to his brother Theo, and other materials he needed. These writings have proven very valuable to date his paintings for instance, but also for their conservation and preservation. It is well known for example that some of the more vivid synthetic pigments that Van Gogh used and mentions in his letters have since faded and that he was aware of that eventuality [4]. The information also helps interpret the scientific analysis that has been done on these paintings to characterize paints.

A visual and interactive timeline that could weave together the information contained in the letters, the results of scientific research, and bibliographic information on Van Gogh would be of great support for the museum professionals who study and care for these paintings. It would facilitate the visualization and interrogation of the data for example to guide conservation treatment, inform preventive measures, support scholarship and authentication. The timeline could also be enriched continuously as more research becomes available. Such a timeline would also be a valuable educational resource and attractive to the wider public as well.   

The assignment is to design a tool that can be used both for entering and visual analysis of data related to the pigments van Gogh used in his painting. The data to be included encompasses information contained in his letters, in particular paint orders, results of scientific analysis on his paintings published in the literature, knowledge on pigment composition and stability and how they were used, chronological information about the paintings and where they were painted, and other potential sources of information that could enrich the timeline.
This assignment is in collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum (VGM) and the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE). Good programming skills are required


[1] https://vangoghworldwide.org/
[2]Vincent van Gogh catalogue raisonné, 1970 Faille
[3] https://vangoghletters.org/
[4] Ontrafel Van Gogh: The colour has to do the job here

Details

Student

EB

Emmie Bessems

Supervisor

Huub van de Wetering

Secondary supervisor

VE

Van Gogh museum (Ana Martins) / Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (Muriel Geldof)