Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Van Gogh's brother

I read an article in the Hindustan Times and said to myself: "Oh no! I've been telling kids this is a painting of VanGogh himself! I've been misinforming them!"

The researchers' arguments as to why it's a picture of Vincent VanGogh's brother Theo and not a self portrait, as previously believed, are sound. So I looked around for some other news to see what the art historians were saying about it.
It seems most of them decided to agree. It's Theo, not Vincent.

In my other readings, though, I noticed something. The articles which included a picture of the painting in question were not showing the same one as the Hindustan Times, the first article I read.

Did the Hindustan Times get the wrong painting (the first one shown here is the one in the HT article)?
I believe so.
So now who's misinforming who?

Turns out I'm okay because I never told anyone anything about the particular painting that the researchers are making claims about.
Shew.
Just in case being accurate about who is who in 120 year old paintings turns out to be important...which it's probably not.

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