Wile E. Van Gogh

Wile E. Van Gogh by Chuck Jones was based upon one of two
self-portraits painted in January of 1889 by Vincent Van Gogh.  Van Gogh, whose influences ranged from the
Japanese artist Hiroshige to his contemporaries Pisarro and Seurat, had recently,
in a state of madness, cut off a portion of his left ear.  Both paintings from January 1889 show Van
Gogh with the bandaged ear. 

In Wile E. Van Gogh, Jones
sought to convey the passionate expressiveness and maniacal focus of his famed
alter ego.  Just as Van Gogh did in his
paintings, Jones has applied the paint using different interpretations of
Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist brushwork—separate patches of color being
applied in different directions to enliven and enhance the intensity of the
subject.  (Chuck Jones has also
re-interpreted Van Gogh’s other self-portrait of January 1889 in his limited
edition lithograph Vincent Van Coyote — shown below and released in 1989.)