(Image 1) Olley’s Poppies and checkered cloth
(Image 2) Van Gogh’s Sunflowers
(Image 3) Van Gogh’s Vine Yards
Margaret Olley and Van Gogh are two of the most well-known impressionists of their time. With more than a century between their eras, they both played significant roles in the progressing development of art today. Similarly painting still life’s and portraits, they also used the same media types and painted what they were surrounded by. For example, rooms of the houses they lived in, flowers and places they travelled. This comparative essay will compare and outline these two famous artists and the similarities between two of their most famous paintings, Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers,’ (Image 1), and Olley’s ‘Poppies and Checked Cloth,’ (Image 2). Overall, this essay will support the statement that Margaret Olley and Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings are similar from the subjects, to the use of media and impressionistic style of the paintings.
Margaret Olley and Vincent Van Gogh were both born on opposite sides of the world, Olley being born in Lismore, Australia and Van Gogh in Zundert, Holland. However, the similarity between their artistic techniques and expression is both stylistic and with much expression. They both painted objects around them that were important to their life at the time. Both studying in Paris, their lives as artists was loved and their paintings showed their biographies. Van Gogh’s life as an artist started at the age of twenty-seven and lasted ten years after he committed suicide. He spent much of his time in an asylum, where he painted ‘the bedroom, ‘his work reflecting the intense colours and strong light of the countryside around him. At one stage of his later life, Van Gogh averaged a painting a day for two months.
Margaret Olley also painted many artworks in her life, often a few at the time, having each in a separate room when she painted
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