1890
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Adeline Ravoux is a 1890 unspecified by Vincent van Gogh, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a young girl in a pink dress, her hands folded, staring straight at you. The background is swirling blue and green, like wind moving through grass. Van Gogh painted this in the last months of his life, in a small French town where he rented a room. He wasn’t trying to make her look exactly like a photo—he wanted color to show feeling. The brushstrokes are thick and quick, almost like he was in a hurry to get the emotion down. Look up *impasto* to see how other artists used thick paint to make their work feel alive.
In May 1890, Vincent van Gogh arrived in Auvers, a small town north of Paris, where he rented a room at the inn of Arthur Ravoux. This portrait, completed during the last months of the artist’s life, depicts Ravoux’s 13-year-old daughter, Adeline. Van Gogh wrote that rather than photographic resemblance, he wanted his portraits to convey the “impassioned aspects” of contemporary life through the “modern taste for color.”
Adeline Ravoux, at age 13, was not pleased with her portrait and did not think the image resembled her. Today, a photograph exists of Adeline in her late seventies and the resemblance is truly remarkable.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art.
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