Chuck Close and Vincent Van Gogh

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Identity is “a subjective sense as well as an observable quality of personal sameness and continuity, paired with some belief in the sameness and continuity of some shared world image. As a quality of unself-conscious living, this can be gloriously obvious in a young person who has found himself as he has found his communality. In him we see emerge a unique unification of what is irreversibly given--that is, body type and temperament, giftedness and vulnerability, infantile models and acquired ideals--with the open choices provided in available roles, occupational possibilities, values offered, mentors met, friendships made, and first sexual encounters.” 1 For an artist it can be said that identity is the character and subject matter of their work. Art is self expression and a release of built up inner feelings where artists can use this release to discover who they are. It is the innate search for our own identity that drives artists such as Chuck Close and Vincent Van Gogh to explore their inner psyche through self expression and portraiture.

The search for identity begins in how one’s childhood progressed, and Chuck Close had a very different childhood from Vincent Van Gogh. An only child, Close was always odd and with little friends due to his family’s constant relocation in his early years. His parents Leslie and Mildred, a plumber and a piano teacher, cherished their only son and aided him in his artistic endeavours to the best of their ability. When Close was about eight years old his father found a local woman of dubious work to give him art lessons in which his mentor would often provide nude models for him to study from. Close’s artistic skills soon garnered him respect and friendship from the classmates who had previously ignored him, making art and drawing a solid influence on his life to come. Van Gogh on the other hand had a less interesting

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