Illuminating Perspectives through Critical Visual Literacy: 56th Annual IVLA Con

Identifying with Van Gogh’s Peasants

“Painting peasant life is a serious thing…” Vincent van Gogh wrote, “and I for one would blame myself if I didn’t try to make paintings such that they give people who think seriously about art and about life serious things to think about …one must paint the peasants as if one were one of them, as feeling, thinking as they do themselves.”

Reflecting on and responding to Van Gogh’s paintings of peasants is a way of teaching critical visual literacy. Who might a student chose to write about in an essay or poem today? A student might choose someone they think of as a contemporary peasant and create a drawing or painting and be prepared to discuss why they have portrayed the subject as they have.

This presentation will include one of the speaker’s ekphrastic sonnets written in response to a peasant-themed painting, accompanied by Van Gogh’s own commentary.