Transforming Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Café Terrace On The Place Du Forum” Into A Short Film Essay.

Vincent Van Gogh and his masterpiece art

Write a paper discussing how you would transform this image to make a strong personal statement using one of the following contemporary visual arts media:

• Photography

• Film
 
• Video

• Computer-based media

Among the legendary neo-impressionistic artists, Vincent Van Gogh is the renowned for his masterpieces.  His world-class paintings such as- Irises Saint-Remy, The Old Mill (1888), Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888), Cypresses series (1889) and many more are the symbol of creativity in case of Vincent. Vincent Von Gough added another marvelous masterwork of him in the year of 1888 to his wonderful twenty-one thousand artworks collection. That work of art is distinguished in the name of “The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum”. Extensive ranges and varieties of color pigments such as- white, yellow, blue, green, orange etc were used by Vincent who gave this painting a touch of life and dazzling effects. Oil paints that were fluently used by him can be observed dancing on the canvas all over the structures beautifully. Van Gough wants to convey a profound meaning with the help of light as well as religion which hold a central characteristic hidden among the colorful visualization of the masterpiece. The key role of these two elements has the same meaning which a true admirer can comprehend same as the legendary painter (Dow, 1964).

By looking closely to The Café Terrance on the Place du Forum, a shaft of light can be perceived which is directly being emanated from the windows of the sound structural building that has been presented in the art work. From the historical point of view, it has been come to the light that, invention of electric bulb was done by Sir Joseph Wilson Swan, an English physicist for the first time and then by the year of 1878, all of England was dazzling with the electric lamps. Then, the next year one and only Thomas Edison designed an actual modern electric bulb which could give light even for more than fifteen hundred hours and forty hours more than that of the conventional electric bulbs. Contemporary style electric bulbs with greater luminance were then introduced by the year 1888 across the globe (Whiting, 2008). In the painting, it has been illustrated with brilliant approach while looking closely towards the right side of the buildings. These buildings those are present here at right side of the painting are emitting bright light which can’t be possible in case of lamps or candles. So, the arrival of a new era of electric bulbs has been demonstrated here marvelously with a little tinge of secrecy (Whiting, 2008).

Meaning of light and religion in the painting

The painter of The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Vincent Van Gogh belonged to Dutch nationality. His childhood was deeply attached with the community of church as he grew up there. So, light had become the profoundest meaning of his life bestowed upon him within the milieu of a divine atmosphere of church, the place of god (Pottharst & Könecke, 2013). This source of life put great positive impact on his heart and by presenting this thought on canvas he got succeeded to enlighten about the meaning of life to the enthusiasts. It influenced the painter to a greater extent and it can also be realized by recognizing his predecessors who were preachers in the church (FORD, 1989). A vista of beautiful sparkling stars in the sky at the night time is the scene often found in the masterpieces of Van Gogh. It seems the painter got mesmerized by the glittering panorama of stars and that’s why he painted this view in most of his art works. It also conveys one of the deepest ideas of the artist about the infinity related to the space and he poured it from his heart as an illustration that enlightens people’s thought about god with which Vincent grew up throughout his early days. The painter depicted his feeling taken from the bottom of his heart on the canvas which was about god and his infinite extent of power. In this spectacular piece of art, there is only one person who seems to be a servant according to his dressing style personifies the similitude of Jesus who is the son of God himself (Geroimenko, 2012). As Van Gogh grew up with a religious upbringing throughout his life, it put reflective influence on his artistic soul. He got tremendously moved by the verse Luke 22:26 of the holy Bible which states that among the people of earth standing or position will be something different and people with great divine qualities will be placed at the lower ranks which mean the leaders will become servants. This thinking of “servants the mirror images of leaders” was nicely put on the canvas by Vincent Van Gogh who wittingly placed a servant who has resemblance with Jesus, the Savior of the entire universe (Monkfort, 2015). He therefore perfectly illustrated the servant at a position in the painting which would be the center of focus, the heart of the masterpiece.

Servant in the painting and religious influence

In this modern era where technology is king and therefore people end up with short-term attention to the relic designed by legendary artists without knowing the thoughts coming from the bottom of heart. Van Gogh illustrated the fact of life in his art piece with a simplified message by portraying the entire painting in a style of short movie with which people could understand its gravity and inner thinking. For the modification part, the message should be conveyed with a simple short film that will be comprehended by the common people. This is possible by portraying all the colors and colorful effects at the same positions with that of the paining as well as the Café Terrace. “The Café of Van Gogh” will be an appropriate title which suits the environment of the painting and with this a tribute can be given to the artist (Pottharst & Könecke, 2013). The short film will get started with a close-up view concentrating on the stones of the street and then wide view towards the giant structures of café. The pace of the scene is the key factor here and it can be properly demonstrated with a fast forwarding scene of people entering into the café but the background with sparkling lights as well as the sunset scene behind the buildings should be illustrated with close-up view and with slower pace and tempo, With this, the impact of the theme will get penetrated right through the core of heart and the message will be conveyed fittingly to the viewers (Geroimenko, 2012).                               

In just a scene about twenty seconds, the shot will illustrate the busy life of people going in and coming out of the café. Then, during the time alternation the attire of the people will also get changed as the actors and actresses will be shooting the previous scene in the attires of 1888. The next scene will be about a person heading towards the Café with his friend so that they could enjoy a delicious meal. At this point of era, the technological advancement can be described by putting mobile phones in the hands of the people while enjoying the sunset at the café. Then, the servant dressed neatly with white clothing will enter to the scene and time will slow and this can be observed by the much slower swinging of the doors than the normal pace. In this busy environment where technology has taken the peak spot nobody will be aware of the presence of this white dressed servant (Pottharst & Könecke, 2013). The servant’s face should be indistinguishable by the viewers as the camera has not been zoomed enough and focus the face of the servant, only the scene will convey that he is pouring water from his pitcher to the glasses and when water reaches at the bottom of the glass cups, it gets tuned into wine amazingly. Then, camera will get zoomed perfectly focusing his pierced hands with a close-up view where people will get astounded that he actually is Jesus, not anyone else. Then, a quick glimpse of the face of Jesus will be shown to the audience but the bustling scene will get continue as if nobody has seen that Jesus was there before sometime (Mokhtar, 2013). The servant of divinity, the son of God is everywhere but people are unable to see him due to lack of faith and inclination towards modernism. Then, the following scene will be a distant view of the café of Van Gogh and then towards the endless dark sky with countless glittery stars. In this way, the post-impressionism style of Van Gogh’s painting and the message inside it can be simply put forward to the people.

Modifying the painting into a short film

The only message that should be displayed on the screen will be according to the viewpoint of Vincent Van Gogh, what he would try to tell the people if he were still at this hectic place on earth where people have no time to ask about any other person. His style of interpretation will have much more value on the screen if it will be displayed precisely by depicting Jesus as the servant of the world who also is the creator (Monkfort, 2015). The entire film will be on the background of religious context and the viewers who don’t believe in Christianity might not get the message. Nevertheless, those viewers who are true art lovers can understand the theme quickly. This short film can be displayed in the art galleries, churches and other spiritual institutions by the hidden message inside it which will act like a magnet and people will get magnetized towards it to get the core message at the ending which is about how modern-day people get distracted from the existence of God as well as it will also describe about spectators’ understanding about the creativity and profundity that lies in this work of art and masterpiece developed by renowned painter Vincent Van Gogh (Mokhtar, 2013).

The visionary painter sold only one piece of this art before his soul got rest in peace. Many critics argue that it is not about the glittering effects of the electric bulbs but about the sparkling stars in the sky. Whatever it is about, in the end it is all about light and the brightness that comes from it which diminishes all the effects of darkness.  

References:

Dow, H. J. (1964). Van Gogh Both Prometheus and Jupiter. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 269-288.

van Gogh, V., & van Gogh, V. W. Art dealer and preacher (1869–1878).

Whiting, J. (2008). Vincent van Gogh. Mitchell Lane Publishers, Inc..

Klein, A. G. (2010). Vincent van Gogh. ABDO Publishing Company.

Pottharst, M., & Könecke, B. (2013). The Night and Its Loss. In Space–Time Design of the Public City (pp. 37-48). Springer Netherlands.

FORD, B. (1989). Portraits of the English Abroad in Countries Other than Italy.Studies in the History of Art, 95-119.

Geroimenko, V. (2012, July). Augmented reality technology and art: the analysis and visualization of evolving conceptual models. In Information Visualisation (IV), 2012 16th International Conference on (pp. 445-453). IEEE.

Wicks, A. C., & Harrison, J. S. (2015). A Practitioner Critique of a Conceptual Paper on Measuring Value and Performance.

Thalheim, B. (2012). The science and art of conceptual modelling. InTransactions on Large-Scale Data-and Knowledge-Centered Systems VI (pp. 76-105). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Mei Min, C., Ling Hong, C., Jian Ai, Y., & Pei Wah, W. (2012). Conceptual Paper: Factors Affecting the Demand of Smartphone among Young Adult.International Journal on Social Science, Economics and Art, 2(2), 44-49.

Mokhtar, M. (2013). A Conceptual and Technical Discussion on Digital Painting as New Media Art: Introducing Some Malaysian Works. Journal of Visual Art and Design, 4(1), 67-83.

Monkfort, N. (2015). Conceptual Computing and Digital Writing.