What was the Beauty in Van Gogh’s Art?

A Philosophical Analysis

Figure 1 Van Gogh Alive, Bonifacio One Technology, Taguig, Quezon City, November 17, 2019 6:30 pm

Madness, depression, tragedy: these are the things that came in my mind when I was
looking at the paintings exhibitions along with the tale behind it which mostly in relations to his
biography with a pre-talk of appreciating arts. It was discussed that Van Gogh’s art at that time
was unacceptable and peculiar among the mass. He used his own style as a symbolic and
expressive values rather than the actual visualizations of the images or what is called “realism”.
Van Gogh’s emotional state highly affected his artistic work and it deeply analyzes his
unconscious mind. After the exhibition, I was left impressed by his progressions of his art
techniques but I was left in such questions that did his art was appreciated in a value of his artworks
or is it out of his sad life story? Is it pity or emotional connections that struck the first people who
bought his art and later on accepted by the mass? As for sure, he was known for the art revolution
for against the trend of the art in his time but is it his death that acted as a catalyst for the realization
that he had undoubtedly transformed western art? Or is it because it was the melancholic and
simplistic appreciation view of life that brought people into it and widen the scope of people who
are able to appreciate art?

We may never know and all the possible answer are perceived as an opinion. Showing
some sort of gratitude and just mere likeness implies a non-reflective and, therefore, not
philosophical approach to artistic world. However, I will give an philosophical approach of
appreciation in his art. In terms of our imaginative mind or even just sentiments toward things,
this allows us to understand such meanings of things. The meaning which seems to me to put on
philosophical and psychological characteristics at a time. In his late paintings, the ones with the
depressive images, put me in an analyzation of the intuition of Van Gogh’s emotions as irrational
in his time. This is somehow related to Immanuel Kant’s view of emotional aspect of men as
something prone into irrational as this violates the logical reasonings or what he called CI
(categorical imperative). In the paintings of Van Gogh, it is the opposite and I think that is what
makes his paintings stand out to my part. To my opinion, his style being peculiar in his time is an
analogy of hyopthetical imperative responds to what is a norm art at that time. The people who
does not accept his art are somehow categorical imperatives. They do not accept the type of art in
any circumstances outside on what is a “norm” or what they see as “rational”. Van gogh’s paintings
are hypothetical imperatives as it responds to what he just “desire” to show and portray, in his own
desired style and techniques. In allegory to Kant, knowing how we can be moral does not mean a
passive acceptance of the social rules of the community in which we live.

What I also see is most of the paintings or let us say the renaissance style of paintings
always have a history that is behind or what gives it a meaning however, in Van Gogh’s, it is what
it is. The philosophy of the potrayal in the simple scenes in life is the hidden meaning, no need to
have some background of some political gossips at that time. This is what maybe makes it
unappreciated in his time in which he lives. My point of this is that one of true appreciation signs
of art or even Van Gogh’s paintings is that it is not out of mere likeness in a physical sense. This
shows that the philosophical significance on we are disposed to admire such paintings that is
conceived by rational reflection. A sign of “deep” appreciation is when we admired it
“irrationally”, that, by its deeper nature, mediates between sensory perception and interpretation
that follows. I have no logical reasons as to why his flower paintings are calming and melancholic.
The essence of art is it able us to disconnect an obsession from rationality and reflection. As an
observation and also explained that he mostly paints nature scenes. Maybe it his view of life and
as he is suffering a mental illness, nature offers him a belongingness and that comforts him. I see
a connection of this on Kant’s starry sky quote. The starry heavens above him looks huge, infinite
and absolutely sublime, but it means nothing when compared with his own value as a rational
being considered as an end in himself, which is revealed by the moral law ‘within me’. This is why
I opt to appreciate Van Gogh’s art to be not tagged along with the story of his life but instead, the
revolutionary aspects that it was made against the norm of his time and the inspire of the concept
of universality.