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vincent van gogh

By Vincent van Gogh - Google Arts & Culture — mwF3N6F_RfJ4_w, Public Domain, LMI Group

The owner of a painting found at a garage sale is convinced it's a van Gogh.

Van Gogh...ever heard of him? Cut off his own ear, painted a self-portrait with a bandage wrapped around his head, one of the most well-known painting masters of all time. Ring a bell?

He was born and lived in the late 1800s. Starry Night, arguably his most famous work and one of the most famous paintings of all time, was completed in 1889, just one year before he died. And though Van Gogh was incredibly prolific, creating well over 1,000 known works, there's something tragic about his art being finite. There will never be another van Gogh, and he will never have the opportunity to put brush to canvas again and give us more of his incredible work to admire, discuss, and debate.

Or...will he?

A painting discovered at a Minnesota garage sale and purchased for less than $50, is dividing the art community. The new owners are convinced it's an original, long lost van Gogh.

 vincent van gogh, van gogh, art, artists, painting, fine art, starry night, master painters, art history, museums Are there still undiscovered van Goghs out there?  Giphy  

An undisclosed buyer snagged the painting from the garage sale—imagine that!—several years ago and found similarities to the styles of Vincent van Gogh. The painting appears to show a fisherman standing by the sea with the letters "ELIMAR" scrawled in the corner. This person submitted a claim with the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2019, considered the absolute authority on the artist, which was quickly denied.

But the story didn't end there. The original buyer sold the painting of the fisherman to a New York company called LMI Group, who were convinced they had an authentic van Gogh on their hands. They set out to prove it with no expense spared.

After years of meticulous research and scientific evaluation, LMI Group released a more-than-400-page report outlining all the findings. In the estimation of their experts, Elimar was without a doubt, painted by van Gogh. Here's why:

  • An egg-white finish was found on the painting, a technique van Gogh was known to use in order to preserve his works when rolling the canvasses.
  • They believe "Elimar" is the name of the painting, and handwriting analysis matches the lettering to other samples from Van Gogh. "A precise mathematical comparison of the letters 'E L I M A R' to the block and free-form letters found in other autograph works by van Gogh, yielded significant similarities in the letters’ characteristics, including stroke length, counter, angle, stroke width, and bounding size," the press release reads.
  • The framing and pose of the subject mirrors van Gogh's later self-portraits.
  • The materials used are confirmed to match the time period in which van Gogh was actively painting.
  • Perhaps most fascinatingly, embedded right there into the painting was a human hair. "Methodical DNA analysis verified that the hair belonged to a human male, with the investigating scientists observing that the hair appeared to be red in color," according to the report.

If Elimar were truly a van Gogh, it would make the piece potentially worth over $15 million.

 vincent van gogh, van gogh, art, artists, painting, fine art, starry night, master painters, art history, museums The painting, "Elimar", was found at a garage sale in Minnesota several years ago.LMI Group

For all the rigorous scientific evidence outlined in the report, the art community collectively disagrees: They say there's no way the Elimar piece was done by van Gogh.

The Van Gogh Museum even officially rejected the attribution recently, casting massive doubts on the attribution to the Dutch master.

But how can people be so dismissive of all the rigorous evidence, all the forensics, materials dating, and even DNA analysis of the hair?! Easy: Elimar just doesn't look or feel right.

Lindsey Bourret, director of Signature Art Authentication put it perfectly: “One of the defining features of van Gogh’s paintings is the precision within his expressive brushwork—his strokes may be bold, but they are purposeful, creating movement and depth that feel both instinctive and masterful. Elimar, by contrast, lacks that balance...While scientific analysis can date materials, it cannot account for an artist’s touch—and in this case, the stylistic weaknesses strongly suggest that this is not a van Gogh.”

There's also common sense at play. Van Gogh was not typically known to sign most of his paintings or write titles on them. So writing "ELIMAR" in the corner would be very out of character for him to do. Far more likely, experts say, is that the painting belongs to Danish painter Henning Elimar. When you see another example of Henning Elimar's work, well, the case is pretty damning.

 

I think there's a part of all of us that really wants Elimar to be a van Gogh. How amazing is it to think that we could still discover new work by one of the greatest artists of all time?

What if there were new inventions and drawings from Leonardo da Vinci still out there, waiting for us to find them? Or a previously unread play written by William Shakespeare?

Sadly, there's a lot of money at stake in potential discoveries like this. Van Gogh is one of the most frequently forged artists because, if you were to convince the world that you had a van Gogh, it would be worth millions of dollars. Though Elimar is not a case of outright forgery, it's certainly possible that the potential riches and excitement have made experts squint a little too hard to try to make the case.

That's not to say Elimar still doesn't have its believers. Susan Brantly, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, helped work on the LMI report and remains convinced. “The first time you look at it, you could say: ‘What? That’s not a Van Gogh. Everybody knows what a Van Gogh looks like,’” Brantly said. But deep research of van Gogh's letters, life, and artistic style convinced her otherwise.

Elimar aside, new works by van Gogh and other masters are out there. In 2013, a painting called Sunset at Montmajour was authenticated. Before that, a new one was added to the collection in 1928. These events are rare and should be highly appreciated. In the meantime, it's OK to continue holding out hope for the next big discovery.

A new biopic on Vincent van Gogh is telling his storied life like it's never been told before.

"Loving Vincent," a documentary in the works from Polish painter Dorota Kobiela and British filmmaker Hugh Welchman, is breaking all the rules of 21st century filmmaking by using some seriously old-school methods.

The film's trailer — released late last month and seen below — has a lot of people talking.


Van Gogh's self-portrait on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.

Here are four reasons why "Loving Vincent" looks like it'll be seriously incredible:

1. It will be the first feature film ever to be made entirely with paintings.

I meant it when I said old-school methods.

All GIFs via "Loving Vincent."

Started as a Kickstarter two years ago, "Loving Vincent" is told solely through paintings brought to life via animation. In order to do this, Kobiela and Welchman are harnessing the talents of oil painters from around the globe to bring each frame to life.

Yes, every single individual frame of the film is a separate painting. And if you're thinking that's a whole lot of painting requiring a whole lot of manpower, you'd be a whole lot of right.

2. Inspired by 120 of van Gogh's own creations, the film will require roughly 57,000 hand-painted frames to complete.

It takes about 12 frames to fill up one second of film, chief animator Piotr Dominiak explained to Voice of America, so you can begin to get the gist of how huge of an undertaking it is.

Why would anyone take on such a daunting project?

“On a daily basis, I go between thinking we're completely inspired, we are doing something no one's ever done, we're going to do it," explained Welchman. "And I also think this is insane, there's a very good reason why no one has ever tried to make an entire film out of paintings.”

But to Kobiela, it all goes back van Gogh's work and the best medium through which to tell his story.

Van Gogh "said we can only speak through our paintings," Kobiela said, citing one of the artist's letters to his brother. "These words were very important for me and they were actually the reason we are making this film like that."

Speaking of van Gogh's letters...

3. "Loving Vincent's" plot is based on 800 of van Gogh's personal letters.

The hundreds of letters written by van Gogh helped to piece together the later years of his life, the film's website explains. Van Gogh tragically committed suicide in 1890 at the age of 37 after living with severe depression and what physicians believe to have been bipolar disorder, among other mental illnesses.

The film uses 800 of his personal letters to form the narrative of the documentary leading up to his tragic and untimely death.

4. Maybe the coolest part about the documentary? You might just be able to help create it.

Van Gogh remains one of the most beloved artists of all time — how neat would it be to contribute to his story?

The film's creators are inviting high-level oil painters to apply to contribute work for the biopic. If selected, artists complete a three-week intensive training to learn how to mimic van Gogh's style of painting, as well as how to use the technology that animates the art.

You can learn more about the project and how to apply here.

In the meantime, check out the incredible trailer for "Loving Vincent" below: