No Photos from Van Gogh

No Photos from Van Gogh – Vincent van Gogh and His Aversion to Photography

No Photos from Van Gogh explores Vincent van Gogh’s complex relationship with photography and portraiture. Van Gogh had a strong aversion to photography, believing that photographs lacked life, emotion, and artistic depth. He preferred painted portraits because they allowed him to capture the character and inner world of his subjects rather than a mechanical likeness.

During Van Gogh’s lifetime, photography was still in its early stages. The wet plate collodion process, invented in 1851 by Frederic Scott Archer, was the most common photographic technique when Vincent van Gogh was growing up. Although photography fascinated many artists, Van Gogh viewed it as cold and colorless, unable to convey memory, feeling, or personality.

Vincent van Gogh on Photography and Portraits

Photography became an important point of comparison for 19th-century artists. Van Gogh initially regarded photography as overly mechanical, especially in contrast to painting from life or memory. His letters clearly express his dissatisfaction with black-and-white photographs.

In September 1888, while living in Arles, Van Gogh received a photograph of his mother from his sister Wilhelmina. In a letter to his brother Theo, he wrote:

“I am doing a portrait of Mother for myself. I cannot stand the colorless photograph and am trying to do one in a harmony of color, as I see it in my memory.” (Letter 546)

Shortly afterward, he emphasized this feeling again:

“I am working on a portrait of Mother, because the black-and-white photograph annoys me so. Ah, what portraits could be made from nature with photography and painting! I always hope that we are still to have a great revolution in portraiture.” (Letter 548)

These letters reveal Van Gogh’s belief that true portraiture goes beyond photography. For him, painting was a way to express emotion, memory, and psychological depth—qualities he felt photography could not yet achieve.

No Photos from Van Gogh – Concept and Inspiration

Inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s writings, drawings, and paintings, No Photos from Van Gogh focuses on subjects he described or depicted himself. The project deliberately avoids photographic references, instead honoring Van Gogh’s vision of portraiture based on imagination, memory, and artistic interpretation.

By revisiting Van Gogh’s ideas about photography, painting, and identity, No Photos from Van Gogh invites viewers to reflect on how art can reveal truths that go beyond the camera lens.

“Exasperated by certain people’s photographic and inane perfection.” 

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh , letter #805, 20.09.1889, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence

“Ah, what portraits we could make from life with photography and painting! I always have hopes that a great revolution still awaits us in portraiture.”

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh. letter #548, 09/ 10.10.1888, Arles

Inspired by his idea of photography, I choose subjects that he has written about, drawn or painted. No Photos from Van Gogh

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