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Severity of Brushstrokes
For my personal line of inquiry I have chosen to explore the severity of

brushstrokes used in the paintings by both Francis Bacon and Vincent Van
Gogh, especially in their portraiture. My hopes are to develop portraits with
expressive markings and a use of colour to capture mood rather than using
colours true to the subject matter, as Van Gogh did, which was unheard of at
the time. In this essay I will look at Van Gogh’s self-portraits as well as his
landscape works analysing his brushstrokes and use of colour alongside
Francis Bacon’s studies of religious figures and his influence from Van Gogh
with the use of intense brushstrokes.
The examples below are transcriptions of both Bacon and Van Gogh’s work,
where I used a range of acrylic paints on paper to explore some techniques
used by the artist and replicate their styles. The Van Gogh study is recent and
the Bacon study is from 2 years ago.
On the left, a study of Van Gogh’s ‘self-

portrait with grey felt hat’ where I tried to
match his rhythmic brushstrokes throughout
the piece and used a palette of bright hues
similar to Van Gogh’s usual palette. On the
right is a study of Francis Bacon’s ‘Pope II”
where dark and minimalistic tones are used
to create a simple but effective image of a
religious figure. Both studies are A3 portrait. I
chose these two artists as their renditions of
portraiture both stun me, whether it be
Bacon’s abnormal facial expressions
portraying brutality and terror or Van Gogh’s
application of paint with a palette of bright
colours capturing mood and emotion.
Self-portrait by Vincent Van Gogh, 1887

Oil on cardboard, 42cm x 32.5cm
This is one of Van Gogh’s many self-portraits, he created at
least twenty-four self-portraits during his stay in Paris
between 1886 and 1888 with his brother Theo. This self-
portrait is modest in size and consists of densely dabbed
brushwork, which later became a benchmark of Van Gogh’s
style. This style was a response of the pointillist technique
used by Georges Seurat, however for Vincent it became a
way of portraying intense emotion and not a method based
on the cool objectivity of science as Seurat had intended. For
this painting Vincent used his usual palette of bright hues,
including intense greens, reds, blues and oranges. I like this
self-portrait in particular because of the way the deep green
eyes dominate over the mass of dots and dashes in an array
of colour.
I also enjoy the blend of colour in the face showing Vincent’s ability to paint
portraiture in the traditional way as well as including his personal style and
method of applying paint, furthermore his background of rich blue contrasting
with the bright head and small areas of oranges and pale yellows creating a
mysterious effect.
This is a later self-portrait by Vincent in 1889, one

of his last portraits. Vincent uses similar
techniques of applying paint as he did in his
earlier self-portraits however he switches his
mystical dark blues for lighter blues, going for a
more minimalistic palette. Vincent’s rhythmic
brushstrokes are seen throughout his work
including one of his most famous paintings “The
Starry Night” from 1889 one year before his
death, where the painting is dominated by the
swirling sky in which his method is demonstrated
best. Once again the blues and yellows are used
as a contrast creating a mystical effect.
Van Gogh’s brother Theo was a dealer in paintings in Paris, Theo was a major
influencer for Vincent allowing and pushing Vincent to devote himself to
painting. Living with Vincent proved not to be easy for Theo, he felt there
where two people in his brother ‘one marvellously gifted, refined and gentle,
and the other selfish and unfeeling’. Vincent left Paris in early 1888 moving to
the south of France, they wrote letters often keeping each other up to date
with their lives. Vincents brotherly love for Theo had a vast effect on his work
as Theo held him together both financially and emotionally. However, Theo’s
investment may not have been brotherly love but merely a shrewd investment.
Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope innocent X, 1953, Oil on canvas,

153cm x 118cm.
The painting shows a distorted version of the ‘Portrait
of Innocent X’ painted by Spanish artist Diego
Velázquez in 1650. For over a decade beginning
1949, Francis Bacon worked to reinvent Velázquez’s
painting. “Haunted and obsessed by the image, … by
its perfection,” he painted more than twenty-five
variations of the Velázquez painting. Bacon then
completed eight studies of a pope loosely based on
the Velázquez paintings the summer of 1953. This
painting shows a screaming pope which Bacon used
as the basis for his studies of 17th century
commissioned religious paintings, this portrays terror
and isolation showing an alternate version of the Pope
which could be interpreted as trappings of a room in a
mental hospital. Bacon confessed that he had “always
wanted and never succeeded in painting the smile”
but he “did hope one day to make the best painting of
the human cry”. As seen in this piece Bacon’s palette changed in 1953,
replacing blues with velvet purples and the overall tone becoming darker, this
is seen throughout his studies of the Pope. In this piece in particular you see a
use of a lot of purple, white and gold conveying a sense of royalty and
significance, with the darker colours in the background offering a grotesque
and terrifying tone to the painting. Bacon’s brushstrokes contrast Van Gogh’s
as they are long and uniform rather than rhythmic and dabbled.
In this painting as well as Bacon’s other Velázquez studies Bacon uses the
pleated curtains of the backdrop rendering them as transparent as they
appear to fall through and enclose the Pope's screaming face leaving his
voice silenced. This is conveyed by draping faded lines vertically applied to
the canvas over the untouched black background, for me this resembles the
idea of being trapped and the lines showing the Pope as being caged away
on his throne. Bacon once again uses the same yellows, whites and purples
for this affect as if the Pope is held captive by
his own royalty. His series of Velázquez
studies trace a sort of stop-action collapse of
their enthroned protagonist, where at the end
he is pictured collapsing and no longer a
powerful leader but a shrunken figure who is
engulfed by his throne, then seen almost
disappearing into the canvas. On the right is
‘Head VI’ by Francis bacon, 1949. This was
the first of his Velázquez studies, this also
shows Bacon’s method of applying paint in an
extreme manner by using large strokes
vertically down the canvas. This shows Van
Gogh’s influence on Bacon with his use of
severe brushstrokes.
Francis Bacon is seen as perhaps the most eminent British painter of the 20th
century, he publicised disturbing imagery with virtually no comment, rejecting
almost any analogy of his paintings leaving his work open for interpretation to
everyone. Bacon has done many studies of Van Gogh’s work as he did with
Velázquez paintings, once again adding his method of brushstrokes
implementing large vertical brushstrokes. Bacon sympathised with Vincents
artistic beliefs, as expressed in Vincents letters to Theo.
To close this essay both Bacon and Vincent’s methods of applying paint show
severity, and inspiration for Bacons’s work has clearly been drawn from
Vincent’s use of rhythmic brushstrokes. I will aim to use techniques from Van
Gogh and Bacon in my paintings by exploring palettes used by both artists
and both small pointillistic brushstrokes and larger systematic brushstrokes. I
may explore into the idea of a figure being trapped by the darker tones
encircling them as Bacon did throughout his Pope studies. The severity of
brushstroke used by both artists is to capture mood and emotion in the
painting, this requires extreme skill and understanding. In conclusion I will try
to replicate this and add more elements of my own style.

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Severity of Brushstrokes

For my personal line of inquiry I have chosen to explore the severity of

On the left, a study of Van Gogh’s ‘self-

Self-portrait by Vincent Van Gogh, 1887

This is a later self-portrait by Vincent in 1889, one

Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope innocent X, 1953, Oil on canvas,

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