The painting “Skull with a burning cigarette” was painted by Vincent Van Gogh in 1886. At that time, the artist only learned to draw, this is the very beginning of his creative path. Vincent always aspired to develop his skills and took lessons from more experienced artists.
The main theme of his works in the Dutch period were peasants. Van Gogh was very fond of people, and that’s what gave him inspiration and pushed him to create many paintings. But he did not draw portraits, he lacked mastery. All his life he was ashamed of this, he tried to improve his technique by frequent training.
At all times, the image of the skeleton, skull and other parts of the body is an indispensable stage in the teaching of drawing. This allows you to more closely examine the proportions of the human body, its structure, learn the correct construction of the human face, the creation of such drawings in the future has a favorable effect on the quality of drawing. Van Gogh was no exception, he passed through standard drawing education.
Looking at this picture, you can say that he masterfully mastered this material. The dark background became a huge plus in the whole picture. Thanks to him, the skeleton, written in light colors, looks bulky, the artist correctly applies every stroke. The picture has very few colors, but from this it does not become faded.
A burning cigarette attracts a lot of attention. It is she who distinguishes this picture from her own kind. Until now, no one knows why the artist decided to depict the skull with a cigarette in his mouth. Maybe he decided to just joke in this way, but maybe he was bored with the training routine exercises in painting and he decided to introduce novelty into them. Van Gogh more loved living people and later created many pictures depicting working people.
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