Vincent Van Gogh was not only a prolific artist, he was also an eloquent writer. He included sketches or drawings in his many letters to his brother Theo. I have several books of Van Gogh's letters complete with sketches. Recently when I felt the need to draw, I chose a drawing from one of the books of letters.
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| Woman Walking With A Stick after Van Gogh. |
There was something about Van Gogh's drawing of the old woman with a walking stick that touched my heart. According to Van Gogh, it was a cold morning and the woman was walking, slightly bent, to work at the mines with a shawl wrapped around her head to protect her from the cold winds.
Van Gogh thought that the only way to improve as an artist to copy paintings by the masters. He often copied the great Delacroix's work and drew and painted several versions of Millet's The Sower. I don't think that Van Gogh would mind that I copied the Woman Walking With A Stick and hopefully he might find my rendition of his work an acceptable tribute to him as an artist. I did use the drawing in an art project to illustrate Robert Browning's poem because the woman seemed to illustrate the line "grow old with me, the best is yet to be."
