PAINS OF SUBALTERN IN PAINTS, A SPARK OF LIFE TO THE DARK SOULS: REPRESENTATION OF THE MARGINALIZED PEASANTS AND THE ARTIST VINCENT WILLEM VAN GOGH IN VAN GOGH’S PAINTINGS

Abstract

Vincent Willem van Gogh, a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist, created around 900 paintings, 1,100 drawings and sketches over a decade. Van Gogh gives emphasis to expression of emotions and sensations through light and colour. He tried to express the deepest emotions of his own tormented soul through his paintings. His paintings were a cry for help, to help his own soul and to help the other marginalized section of the society, the poor peasants. Thus, he was also called as ‘Peasant Painter’. He was the artist who lives with the peasants in Nuenen and becomes one among them to absorb their lives in brushes and to reflect them through his dark tones of paint. The use of dark tones in these peasant paintings represent their hard work and dark life they were leading. His first masterpiece The Potato Eaters serves as a perfect example for peasant life depicted in shades and one of his famous paintings The Starry Night reflects van Gogh’s lonely and marginalized condition as an artist.