
Vincent van GoghPaíses Bajos, 1853–1890L'Italienne
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París, Francia
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La italiana es un cuadro pintado al óleo sobre tela del pintor neerlandés Vincent van Gogh. Data del año 1887, siendo un retrato realizado en París. Esta pintura se encuentra en el Museo de Orsay (París, Francia).
El sujeto representado es una mujer sentada, presumiblemente Agostina Segatori, antigua modelo y propietaria del café del Tambourin, en el bulevar de Clichy. Con ella tuvo una breve relación amorosa Van Gogh unos meses antes de ejecutar este retrato.
La mujer es retratada frontalmente, vestida con trajes folclóricos y con un pañuelo rojo en la cabeza que le cubre los negros cabellos. De la silla sobre la que se encuentra sentada, azul, se ve sólo una esquina del respaldo detrás de ella. El fondo es una mancha uniforme de color amarillo, lo que recuerda la técnica de la mancha de color puro y opaco de las estampas. Esta ausencia de referencias de perspectiva da a la tela una cierta bidimensionalidad, la cual falta, sin embargo, en la cabeza de la figura, enriquecida por tonos claroscuros que hacen intuir la profundidad y la consistencia. Sobre el lado derecho y sobre el superior de la tela está pintado un marco y cuyos colores recuerdan a los de la falda del modelo.
February 1886
Moves to Paris to join his brother Theo
Van Gogh left Antwerp to join his brother Theo, an art dealer, in Paris. So began a very fruitful and eventful Paris period: he painted some two hundred and thirty pictures there, more than anywhere else.
November 1887
Friendship with Paul Gauguin
Theo and Vincent befriended Paul Gauguin, who had just arrived in Paris.
February 1888
To Arles, dreaming of a “Studio of the South”
The public still neither accepted nor bought his paintings, and in February 1888 Van Gogh left for Arles in the south of France to found a “Studio of the South”, a brotherhood of like-minded artists in which he gave Gauguin the leading role. Theo backed the plan with money.
23 October 1888
Gauguin arrives in Arles
After much pleading Gauguin arrived in Arles, and in November the two painted together: Gauguin portrayed Van Gogh in “The Painter of Sunflowers”, and their first joint outing was to the Alyscamps. At Gauguin's suggestion Vincent painted from memory, producing “Memory of the Garden at Etten”.
23 December 1888
The severed ear
After an altercation on the evening of 23 December, Van Gogh, seemingly hearing voices, severed his left ear, wholly or in part, with a razor and delivered it, wrapped in paper, to a woman at a brothel. Next morning a policeman found him unconscious; in hospital he was diagnosed with “acute mania with generalised delirium”.
May 1889
Voluntarily into the Saint-Paul asylum
Van Gogh left Arles and voluntarily entered the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum, a former monastery in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, accompanied by the Protestant clergyman Frédéric Salles. Of his two cells with barred windows one became a studio, and the clinic and its garden became the main subjects of his paintings.