The Forger's Masterclass - Ep. 03 - Vincent Van Gogh

my name is John Myatt in my time I've been a teacher a painter and an art forger in 1999 I was jailed for forging over 200 paintings a crime but rocked the art world and I paid the price these days by painting the style of the great masters and sell them legally as honest fakes and I've started teaching the tricks of my trade to aspiring artists because all painters can learn by copying others today my three artists will be painting in the style of one of art's greatest and most tortured talents van Gogh a bit clown like you've got to get behind this thing you've got to give me someone that in order to get some of this today I'm at English rehaul an art school just down the road from where I live in Staffordshire here I'll be teaching three students to paint a self-portrait in the style of one of history's most influential artists when you hear the name Vincent van Gogh do you think mad genius well if you do you're not alone Vincent van Gogh slive was beset by early failure by personality difficulties and an adult diagnosis of insanity yet despite all this he has become in legend one of the world's greatest ever artists in 1880 aged 27 van Gogh nods to the world that he would become a professional artist inspired by the Impressionists use of color he was determined to take things just one step further he experimented with even bolder colors and intense broken brushstrokes these techniques became the hallmarks of the post Impressionism and Bangor became its undisputed master at first glance van Gogh's manner might appear to be quite easy to achieve but if the students are really to succeed here today they're going to have to create a feeling of spontaneity coupled with an informed choice about the use of color so a word to the wise then don't go underestimate in Vincent van Gogh today's students will have to get to grips with the vibrant brushstrokes of Van Gogh my name is Irene Franklin I live in Redditch in Worcestershire and I'm a passionate amateur artist my name is Maria Melinda I'm from Litchfield and I'm currently an art she my name is Cole Thompson I'm from country I'm an engineer I'm also a passionate airbrush artist I've only been painting for two and a half years although I think most of my life I've been painting in my head yes I do feel quite nervous it's a very unknown and I should imagine it will feel quite pressured on a day no matter what style I was given or what ourselves doing this is a challenge and I'm quite looking forward to that I can't think of anyone particularly I'd be worried about doing the question is will this artistic journey prove too much for them so Carl Irene Maria your challenge today is to paint a self-portrait in the style of Vincent van Gogh how do you feel about this as a task really oh good for you well done you think it's achievable I'll give it my best good well done without really excited so I just loved the movement of his brushes everything expresses energy and life and I just think it's wonderful so I can't wait to go look at the format it's it's just straightforward isn't it it's head and shoulders this is not rocket science we're not there's nothing there's nothing particularly challenging in the way he's actually set out the painting but the draftsmanship that the care and the almost anatomical knowledge of the skull beneath the skin that is really good isn't it what are your feelings here well I've only ever sort of done a sketch portrait of myself as such a long time ago and it it was hideous and I hated it and I've never really been tempted to do it again so it'll be an interesting procedure for me to do here we are in 1889 he's in the asylum at surimi he's painting one painting per day at least now this fits in rather nicely with your challenge because you've probably got about six hours or so only less to do this work which is pretty much what he had I think I can achieve something in this style of the van Gogh I'd be interested to see applying paint with the paintbrush rather than an airbrush which I do at the moment so your challenge today then is to try to get in touch with the intense inner you and you've got just one day to do it so off you go before my students can embark on today's challenge they need something to paint that's it Maria let's get those mirrors out right I'm gonna put this here so it's right in your eye line so you can see it anytime you want to just come up straight here and have a look at it adjust the mirror so the relationship to yourself the mirror and the canvas is exactly the way you want it as close as we can to that format please either with your pencils or your brushes I don't care which one let's just rough in the general oval shape of your face and neck and shoulders generally speaking in the face the eyes come halfway down between the top of the head and the tip of the chin keep that in mind if you can probably you can see it here if we split this face in half we could probably say this distance is that distance can say that nearly actually just I think within possibly looking slightly lower so let's say that's half where that takes us to the tip of the beard there and won't change and that takes us to the top of the head exactly from the pupil of the eye halfway down Carl's not hanging about he's already got stuck in with the paintbrush well done Carl a brave move very good happy I just hope we're from photographs okay so it's certain I've never sketched with her with a paint before so so I try it there we go you know it's a nothing ventured nothing gained as I say mr. cool I think the ideal lesson to be learned from working from photographs is is if you work from photographs in conjunction with working from life you really get a great result but if you if you work exclusively from photographs sometimes just this this hint of stability just creeps in somehow just to sharpen the old hand I think it might be you know just sit down in front of a packet of cornflakes or something and just pour it yeah but this is a great exercise for you yeah I think you're doing well here right we've got five minutes left to establish your likeness in outline I probably struggle with timing and having to walk away if I'm not happy with how the work is finished my feeling looking at you is it your face is actually slightly taller than you you've got up on the back a fraction I would give her a bit more on top as it was let's leave them to finish their outlines while I show you a trick I've learned about restoring brushes well if you've got a brush and you've really fallen in love with it like I have with this little chap here but it's seen better days and you want to restore the point sometimes it's a good idea to get a bit of kitchen towel squirt it get it nice and moist and leave your brush overnight wrapped up in the kitchen towel like that nice and tight nice and tight in the morning when you come down we'll find the point will be restored in the end of course you you can only do this so many times and then you have to give up and get another brush but it does keep things going for quite a bit longer okay now what I'm going to ask you to do now is what I think Vincent would have done himself I want you to mix a large and I do mean large quantity of color this is about an inner journey that you're going to undergo using paint as an expressive means to get to the end of the journey so if you're feeling in a yellow mood today yellow it is if you're feeling in a blue mood today blue it is red it is pink it is whatever color it is make that decision now I presume I'm going to be told we can't do any more with that you can't do any more with this and I'm going to have to stay awake are we are we heading towards chrome yellow here by the looks of it which is kind of orange color yes well then we're gonna need lots and lots on it because we're going to put it on thickly you know you're gonna charge that brush and you're gonna we're gonna see every brush mark you make so we want lots and lots of it what can I suggest we just go for the background in one go No are you conscious of a light source anywhere that's lovely that's just beautiful confidence stuff um yes it's hi lash so this side of your face is lighter and this size darker now with a very small brush at some point could you just soften some of these transition I'll just try sure what I mean so it might be interesting just to start softening these areas just a touch like that to finding the shadows where they are at their most intense here and here are your eye and then dance earnest one across their nose a little bit down here as well but if you just touch those moments in where you find a little yeah with that color then we can was dark in it what's good what's going to be our background correct color here Irene I was going to put them yellow and and the orange end in some having an orange background are we we're yellowy orange yeah yeah can we just get it on oh I think the important thing now is to as quickly as we can let's get rid of the white canvas that's the stuff that's it we can put the kind of swirling things in later on if we want to but let's just get rid of that white despite being a genius van Gogh hardly enjoyed any recognition or success during his lifetime today van Gogh's paintings sell for millions of pounds but back then he was more or less penniless and entirely dependent on his art dealer brother Te'o for funds and indeed for rescuing him from one scrape after another his family had turned their backs on him really because he set up house with a Dutch prostitute and her five-year-old son his relationships with women were characteristically tortured he either set about rescuing women from sin and squalor and misery or he elevated them onto these great pedestal fell in love with them and suffered all the pangs of unrequited love he drank and he smoked heavily and by 1888 it was quite apparent that he was being tortured by mental illness his brother Theo said it was like living with two different people one gifted pleasant kind thoughtful the other vicious selfish horrible and unpleasant I'm disappointed with the students progress so far I think it's time to gather the troops can you just have a quick look everybody please Maria has indicated in a darker version of this background color the shadows that she's seeing on her face she's we haven't gone into too much detail here but here we have a darker version of this color there to actually articulate the shape I want one more color your choice but what it has to do is to cover the whole area everything we're getting rid of the white whereas I would just self focus on the color that I see there and then and I'd mix it as I went along this is totally different Mary I'm finding Karl especially frustrating he's used to working from photos and can't seem to relax into painting from life you've got your light source all worked out of here yeah yeah sorted from this Sun right I'll just put it on and see how it go go on go on go on show me what you're gonna do yeah come on here we go I'm sorry yeah that's pretty good okay that's the right color while you're doing this car remember that he actually used the brushstrokes directionally yeah it's not too soon to think about this I know we'll we'll do that at the later stage as well but he is using the brushstrokes directionally down here over the over the kind of you know eyebrows okay so as you apply the color try and apply it so structurally to the face all right okay I'll leave you to it the more I gets into picture I've got a feeling that I might get a bit more room a bit more concerned we wearing going there's a halfway stage where it's not quite it's not finished and if you've started it and as always this this always tend to be a mental block which a lot of artists have my students are still not managing to find the fashion it's shaped Van Gogh's extraordinary paintings and destroyed most of his friendships van Gogh spent much of the last two years of his life in the South of France he set up a studio there and invited his friend and fellow painter Paul Gauguin to come and share it with him before gogans arrival van Gogh decorated gogans room with large paintings of sunflowers which today of course are world-famous the two drank and painted together but argued constantly and in the end van Gogh drew a knife on Gogan who just stormed out Fran Gogh fell apart with guilt and he took a razor to his earlobe cut it off and the next day presented it to a local prostitute in the brothel with the words keep this object as a treasure the local citizens petitioned the mayor to have him removed from the streets and he committed himself to the local lunatic asylum in sare me where he recovered somewhat but after this he was never fully to recover his mental equilibrium right now can I just have your attention for a minute here you have to say that even without a beard one of the most important parts of Vincent's painting is is his hair because if you take his hair out in fact this is this is where all the dark moments are so we got a hint of green color here which we find sort of related down here Browns defining the edge here and ruin colors at the front and darker tones the side so can I ask you please ladies and gentlemen will you please indicate hair now I wanted to paint them warm colors but the moment Dunican in this style and they're looking a bit frightened li warm but other Ibar be able to moderate the most as it goes on and looking a bit climbing like but I haven't given up hope I think Karl just a tiny bit more intensity in the actual way that paint leaves a brush yeah I just want to see it's a bit early to talk about agitation but I would like to see a sort of sense of you know just getting in there and doing it and see it make a decision do it if we're trying to think like him then we'll have to try and think of a kind of an emotional state and we'll have to think of some urgency as that paint leaves that and goes on to that and I'm not quite seeing that yet okay oh yeah I think I might end up putting my foot through glitter or see how I go well things are reaching quite a critical stage now I do honestly think that we've got the potential there for three quite good paintings if if I could take the paintbrush out of their hands and actually do it which is completely defeats the exercise I would do I've got to persuade them to do it and it's that that is frustratingly at this point but I think in Maria's case she's taken a giant step in the last ten minutes in Irene's case I need to pull her back a bit in Carl's case I think we have not so much control going on that it's really you know boot up the last time he's really gotta get loosen up and express himself I don't know what words to use to actually getting to do it ha right that's it I've had enough right ladies and gentlemen I'm gonna have to give you a bit of a talking to now so can you just pay attention for a few minutes what we're looking at here is a balance between control and passion agreed yeah there is passion in this painting isn't it there is passion in this painting and there's passion in the way that the paint is applied and this control in the way that it's drawn now Karl you've got the control but we still got white ears and white eyes well on the Homewood stretch why the hell can't you cover the canvas up for me do you see I'm getting passionate but I have to control my passion because I want you to do what I want you to do is no good me coming up beating you up you've got to you've got to get behind this thing you've got to give me some of that in order to get some of this and it's not there yet is it no doesn't it make you realize how good he was look at it I mean it's just brilliant if he could actually buy the miracles of you know computer animation get up grow a body and some legs and stand behind your painting call what would he say oh dear get on with it as what he'd say get on with it just please mix me some thick paint and put it on I'm good no I'll sleeve as he's got some issues with the way I perhaps approach in this I'll think of how he's just extremely difficult for me to break out of how I how I paint I'm very precise and this is very unprecedented stream extremely difficult I thought I was going okay but obviously obviously not well after that I think I need to take a break nowadays I love painting at home but when I was forging things were quite different I suppose when I was painting criminally and delivering paintings down to London I guess I was probably turning out about one painting a month over maybe more maybe two paintings a month over a period of about six or seven years they say there's about 200 paintings altogether they've got about 80 of them back you'd have thought it would look for in a great moment with you when you see your own paintings go up in front of a major auction house under and hear the option there describe them as important works of art a safe word but I just find it very depressing and remember walking away of thinking of God you know it didn't do much for life a sense of self esteem must say but you know bad stuff does happen well I've given the students my advice loud and clear I'm just hoping they've taken it on board if after John's statements I decided to be a bit more bolder and try and inject a bit of passion mom Marie Marie a rather it's a it's changed a bit since the last time I think there's a unity coming it's actually this that's helping to unify the whole surface for you and I think if you can just keep that in mind as you head down towards the finishing post ten minutes away and I'm okay we'll have a result try good I was still when I started on a painting I know what I'm going to do and I start applying color and I'm thinking you've lost you've lost and then it starts to come back home again irony yes Joe how we doing um I couldn't have a few errors on another few hours when you haven't got another few hours I think we've got something here we've got the sense of drama here wait and I hope so well I still think she looks funny but I've really enjoyed it really enjoying it yeah I can tell I give you a fright I've had worse you see this is a lovely lovely bit of work you'll take it away and mrs. Carlin yourself will treasure it forever but if it if you would if this isn't exercising in getting into vincent's area I think you will understand something about him when all this is over I think the students are finding this exercise really tough for Van Gogh his worsening health was also taking its toll few people realize that van Gogh output was confined to the last 10 years of his life and of that 10 years the masterpieces came from the last for remarkable really when you think how ill he was becoming by then schizophrenia syphilis epilepsy all these have been cited as possible reasons for his illness but the truth is that no one really knows for sure what is known is that on July the 27th 1890 he went into a wheat field to paint taking with him a revolver he'd borrowed from a friend saying he wanted it to frighten away the birds standing against a tree he shot himself in the chest he died two days later with his brother Theo at his side whispering the words the sadness will never end in his own lifetime he sold just one painting for 400 francs today he's remembered as one of the most influential artists of his generation okay everybody time's up put those brushes down time to have a look at what we've got right Karl the moment I know you've been waiting for your painting in all its glory here we go now what do you think I'm pleasing the fact that I've been able to do a reasonably good turn a sketch of myself jeez it's one of the first times I've ever tried to do that from life I mean if the portrait has a function all my self-portrait has a function it is actually to look something like the person who is looking into the mirror that does that job so you've got evidence of good draftsmanship you've got evidence of good control good the compositions very sound does it look like a rag off no it was just a question of that sense of just Mina please Karl just get the engine going and let's just get going it didn't happen quick enough for us I think I think that's that that's what a fan is the fine line between being free and in control and I was I was frightened to go out of control I appreciate what he was saying although why picked me out has some special case I don't know perhaps it was just just abatement a bad day for him but what I took his comments on board and I thought acted against those well Maria so what do you think about the work you've done today I feel a little frustrated I would have liked at least another hour on it and I was just getting there was just getting into the passionate essence of it that you've been talking to us about today it's got all the signs of a painting that is actually an within within sight of the finishing line but just needs a little bit further to go hmm we found you know the colors are resonating across the canvas surface this energy at the back somehow or other does seem to focus we are here on the face this is a good likeness of you I think perhaps looking a tiny bit more serious offensive offensive offensive is good anyway what a result son well done I've surprised myself ready because I didn't think I'd want to do a self-portrait bit of a horrendous concept to start with but I feel it's gone well so Irene the moment of truth you're painting in its frame here we go what do you think I don't think he's berry then girl I don't think he would be in any way disappointed with this this actually typifies one aspect of what he was all about you never had a problem with putting the energy in I think the problem was the other way around it was just putting a bit more control in of the three students she were the one who was who I could possibly - I've been reined back a little bit and you did you have a lot of fun here you've got an overall tonality you've got the musical rhythm of the thing going on between this green this yellow and this red and there's just a few blue moments still remaining which actually helped as well so I think you know there's a real understanding of what he was trying to achieve here sense wonderful and and probably true as well I always think this is a good way of understanding an artist and their methods is by copying them you learn a huge amount by doing that so I could probably have another going now I might plug you that go home and pay well I mean thank you very much indeed thank you and thank you all of you wonderful day's work super today my three students have been asked to use color to express their inner selves personally I think all three paintings are slightly wide of the mark it's always the case with Van Gogh that there's this balance between passion mergency and control passion and control this is what I find when I paint in this style now if any or all of the three students have come anywhere near this feeling this balance then for me personally it has to be mission accomplished in my mind Irene got closest to the essence of Van Gogh but whether she produced the best painting well that's a different matter that's for you to decide you

Channel: TheArtyBartfast

Views: 533,481

Keywords: forger, forger's, forgers, master, class, masterclass, john, myatt, paint, painting, teaching, forgery, copy, old, Vincent, Van, Gogh

Id: yeDrkZaCXqI

Length: 28min 26sec (1706 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 27 2012