How have artists used the world around them, including culture and physical and mental afflictions, to influence their work depicting trees?
Trees have appeared in art throughout history, and their complex form has provided a challenge for artists such as Mondrian and Jackson, who push the boundaries of nature to provide something both pleasing to the eye, complex, and clever. Mondrian, for instance focused on slowly abstracting a relatively normal painting of a tree through to a completely Cubist non-representational image. One of his works portrays a set of red and yellow squares - something only achievable successfully when the viewer is of a modern mindset and understands Cubism. I am going to explore why the portrayal of trees has changed so dramatically throughout history, and how artists have worked to influence future generations.
In the 19th century, 1889, Vincent van Gogh checked into an asylum in Saint-Rémy after suffering from epileptic attacks. Whilst he was there he produced a painting entitled Mulberry Tree. Van Gogh wrote to his brother that it was his favourite of his Mulberry Trees, with leaves of yellow chrome, swirled with the tip of his brush handle. Vincent was very, very fond of this Mulberry Tree, and it is easy to see why. The leaves are a perfect blend of yellow and orange, and the background seems to be folding in on itself. This Mulberry Tree is my first example of how artists have used their own inflictions in order to influence other artists in future generations - Van Gogh has clearly used his illness and new vision of the world to create something beautiful and also technically difficult to achieve. By working impasto, Van Gogh has scratched a resonating image into this oil on canvas in a way which many artists try to achieve nowadays.
