van Gogh's Painting of an Oxherd

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Mary Tompkins Lewis, Eternal Petience: The strength and character of humanity, captured in one face. Wall Street Journal, Nov 24.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 15313500018222.html

Note:
(1) Family names:
(a) The English surname Tompkins means son of "a pet form of the personal name Thomas."
(b) Frick is a short form of Friedrich.
(2) The Frick Collection
http://www.frick.org/about
("The collection was assembled by the Pittsburgh industrialist Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) and is housed in his former residence on Fifth Avenue")
(3)
(a) Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)
(b) van Gogh (disambiguation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Gogh_(disambiguation)
(Van Gogh or van Gogh, a family name meaning "from Gogh")

* Gogh is Dutch spelling--English /German spelling being Goch--for a town now in Germany but close to the border with the Netherlands.

(4) French places:
(a) Arles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arles
(Arelate in ancient Latin; in the former province of Provence)
* Provence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provence
(The Romans made the region into the first Roman province beyond the Alps, their Provincia Romana, the origin of its present name)
(b) Arles Property Insight. French-Property.com, undated
http://www.french-property.com/p ... hone/arles/insight/
("Its name comes from Arelate, meaning ‘place located near the pond’, with reference to the marshy lands around the town; The name of Arles is nowadays inseparable of Van Gogh’s one [van Gogh arrived in 1888]")
(c) Camargue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camargue
* Rhone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhone
(introduction; section 4 Etymology)
(d) Crau
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crau

(5) Patience Escalier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portraits_by_Vincent_van_Gogh
(sectin 4.13 Vieux Paysan: Patience Escalier)
(a) French:
vieux (adj): "old"
paysan (noun masculine): "peasant"
(b) Patience is now a female given name.

(6) The article said, "To many in late 19th-century France, these rugged denizens of the provinces represented the moral bedrock of the Third Republic."

French Third Republic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War
(from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed [in the wake of  Franco-Prussian War], to 1940, when it was replaced by the Vichy France government after the French Third Republic's defeat to Nazi Germany in the early stages of World War II)

(7) Jean-François Millet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Fran%C3%A7ois_Millet
(1814-1875; a French painter)
(8) The article mentioned "Emile Zola's controversial 'La Terre.'"

(a) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Terre
(published in 1887)
(b) Emil (given name)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_(given_name)
(The name Emil, Emile or Émile is a male given name, deriving from the Latin [family name] Aemilius of the gens Aemilia. The female given name is Emily; Italian form: Emilio)
(9) The article alludes to "Symbolist palettes."

symbolism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolism
(section 1 Art: Symbolism (arts) or Symbolist, a 19th-century artistic movement rejecting Realism)
(10) Eugène Boch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Boch
(1855-1941; a Belgian painter)

(11) The article commented, "the rigorous terrain and brilliant light of the Midi would shape his portraits there as well as his plein-air views."
(a) For Midi, see Southern France
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_France
(Southern France (or the south of France), colloquially known as le Midi)

* French:
midi (n masculine): "noon"
(b) plein-air (adj; French, open air; First Known Use 1894):
"of or relating to painting in outdoor daylight"


(12) Prussian blue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_blue
("Prussian blue [Fe4[Fe(CN)6]3] was probably synthesized for the first time by the paint maker Diesbach in Berlin around the year 1706. Most historical sources do not mention a first name of Diesbach")
(13) The article used the wording:
(a) "emotive paintings."

emotive (adj):
"appealing to or expressing emotion <the emotive use of language>"

(b) "The unmodulated, saturated tones and vehement handling of paint that characterize the [] painting."

modulate (vt; Latin modulatus, past participle of modulari to play, sing, from [noun] modulus small measure, rhythm, diminutive of [Latin noun] modus measure):
"to adjust to or keep in proper measure or proportion : TEMPER"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/modulate
(c) underdrawing (n; First Known Use 1968):
"a preliminary sketch made on a surface (as a canvas or panel) prior to painting"