In-Depth Conceptualization: "Subtitles" – A Subrealist and Hybrid Reinterpretation of Van Gogh

1. Artistic and Philosophical Context

The work "Subtitles" is part of a contemporary approach where subrealist abstraction and hybrid techniques (physical and digital) serve as a medium to explore the invisible layers of a classical work. By revisiting Van Gogh's Self-Portrait, Paris, June 1887, this piece questions the notion of duality (visible/invisible, tangible/intangible, classical/contemporary) while paying homage to Abstract Expressionism and Pointillism reinterpreted in movement.

- Subrealism: Here, the term refers to an abstraction that does not seek to escape reality, but to reveal its hidden layers – the "subtitles" of the work, namely the intentions, buried emotions, or latent interpretations.

- Contemplative allegory: The piece functions like a palimpsest, superimposing acrylic paint (canvas photographed and manually cropped) and minimalist digital animation, creating a dialogue between the materiality of Van Gogh's brushstrokes and digital ephemerality.

2. Mixed media and cultural hybridization

The work fuses:

- Physical paint (acrylic on canvas, photographed and digitized as a layer) to preserve the trace of the artisanal gesture.

- Digital animation (pointillism in motion, sequential images) evoking a "decomposition" of the visible, as if Van Gogh's dots of color were animated to reveal their underlying energy.

- Digital subculture: The minimalist animation is reminiscent of GIFs or hypnotic loops, anchoring the work in a web aesthetic while questioning the sustainability of art in the age of digital flux.

3. Xanthopsia: Altered Perception and Duality

The Xanthopsia (yellow vision) collection refers to color perception disorders—a metaphor for how art transforms reality. In "Subtitles," yellow (Van Gogh's favorite color, a symbol of light and anguish) is reworked in digital shades, oscillating between euphoria and melancholy.

- Utopia and Dystopia: Like Van Gogh, who saw the world through the prism of his psyche, the work offers a vision where the positive and the dark coexist, like the "subtitles" that simultaneously reveal and conceal.

4. Poetics of "Subtitles"

The very title of the work is a manifesto:

- The Subtexts of Art: What Lies Beneath the Surface of a Self-Portrait? Van Gogh's brushstrokes here become animated fragments, as if the original work were "subtitled" by its own chromatic vibrations.

- Subtle statements of intent: The digital animation acts as a contemporary translation of Van Gogh's creative impulse, emphasizing that every work is a dialogue between the artist, his time, and his future reinterpretations.

5. Reflections on the Reinvention of Classical Art

This reinterpretation illustrates how digital tools can:

- Deconstruct the pictorial gesture (pointillism becomes dynamic, matter becomes virtual).

- Create new narratives: The animation injects a temporality absent from the original canvas, recalling that Van Gogh himself sought to capture movement (see Starry Night).

- Question authenticity: By hybridizing traditional techniques and pixels, the work blurs the lines between original and copy, while affirming that art lives through reinterpretation.

Conclusion: A Transcendent Tribute

"Subtitles" is not a simple reappropriation, but a meditative metamorphosis of Van Gogh, where subrealism and digital technology serve to reveal the invisible. By blending acrylic and animation, it embodies the tension between permanence and transience, between the work as object and as process. The Xanthopsia collection, through this piece, thus celebrates the ability of art to transform perceptions – just as Van Gogh saw the world in yellow, we are invited to view his work through the prism of poetic and technological abstraction.

"Art does not reproduce the visible, it makes visible." (Paul Klee) – "Subtitles" takes this idea further: what if it also revealed the inaudible?

Tribute to Van Gogh : « auto-portrait,  Paris, juin 1887 »

Original at : Kröller-Müller Museum

2160 x 3840 px / 4k MP4 / 96.7 Mo / 5 fps / 1/1 édition

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