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Section 3: Analyzing a self-portrait

Answer the following questions

Question

1. Why do the speakers consider this artwork incredibly modern for its time?

Answers

Because Van Gogh uses a bold, unrealistic color that no artist had ever employed before for an entire background.

Because shapes are fragmented and the painter represents all the surfaces of the figure on a single plane.

Because the contours of the figure are very blurred.

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Question

2. How are structure and volume created in this painting?

Answers

By means of chiaroscuro.

By means of perspective.

By means of color, just like Cézanne.

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Question

3. How is Van Gogh's brushwork described in this conversation?

Answers

It is the typical brushwork of pointillism: small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image. 

His brushstrokes cascade almost like a river of paint flowing across the face.

His brushwork depicts the texture of objects in a very realistic way.

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Question

4. What sort of palette does Van Gogh use for the skin?

Answers

The usual range of flesh tones.

Orange, rust and brown.

Pinks and purples on his temple, modulating over to green.

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Question

5. Van Gogh's tight skin over his high, protruding cheekbones remind one of the speakers of...

Answers

A skull, as some kind of "memento mori".

A Japanese man.

His friend Gauguin.

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