Van Gogh over Van Gogh

Posted by Meg Nola Jul 31, 2008

Without disturbing a single fleck of paint, scientists have been able to see through Vincent van Gogh’s 1887 Patch of Grass and have uncovered a portrait of a woman, most likely a study for another well-known 1885 van Gogh work entitled The Potato Eaters. The revelation was made by researchers at Delft University of Technology and Belgium’s University of Antwerp, using an X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy-based advancement that can detect hidden paintings by gauging the chemical composition of pigment. Van Gogh often reused canvases, painting one work over another -- an economical practice and also one that would allow him to move beyond anything he considered to be less than his personal best. Art historians, however, are always interested in any aspect of a famed painter’s career, and hope to use this amazing new method to uncover more hidden paintings by van Gogh and others. Click here to read more about the process behind the revelation, then click on the titles to view van Gogh’s actual Patch of Grass and The Potato Eaters. “In either figure or landscape I should wish to express, not sentimental melancholy, but serious sorrow...I want to progress so far that people will say of my work, he feels deeply, he feels tenderly - notwithstanding my so-called roughness, perhaps even because of it….” (Letter from Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo)