Artists Who Painted Their Emotions
Expressing the Inexpressible: How Painters Harness Art to Externalize
Artists throughout history have harnessed their craft to express a wide amount of human emotion. On one end of the spectrum, you have buoyant, upbeat painters like Henri Matisse, who conveyed joyful feelings of excitement and optimism through bright, lively works like his fauvist Dance paintings. Matisse described his artistic goal as creating “an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter.”
On the other hand with anguished artists like Vincent van Gogh, whose work reflected his lifelong struggles with mental illness. Paintings like The Starry Night and many self-portraits externalized his inner demons, sorrow, and anxiety through thick, agitated brushstrokes and tormented imagery. “I put my heart and my soul into my work,” he said, “and have lost my mind in the process.”
Both approaches offer truth. We contain multitudes – light and dark, agony and ecstasy. Expressing only one aspect would be inauthentic for most of us. As full human beings, we ebb and flow between troubles and joys, boredom and bliss. Yet exploring the extremes helps us understand ourselves. As Frida Kahlo mused, “I paint flowers so they will not die.” Art preserves our experiences across the emotional spectrum.
Artistes Depicting Their Inner Storms Through Paintings
Throughout history, painters have channeled their anxieties, grief, melancholia, and other difficult-to-grasp emotions onto the canvas.
Their turbulence transformed into masterpieces that resonate through time. Far from glamorizing darkness, these brave souls illuminate the universality of human turmoil.
Vincent Van Gogh was notorious for depicting his mental anguish in profound ways, swirling paintings like The Starry Night. The moody, abstract landscape seems to mirror his inner storminess. Frida Kahlo unpacked her physical and psychic pain in intimate self-portraits loaded with surreal symbolism, such as her graphicly ravaged heart depicted in The Broken Column.
Many of Van Gogh’s paintings use color, brushwork, and composition to vividly convey emotional states and inner turmoil.
His symbolic imagery allows viewers to intensely feel and perceive the emotions he experienced and conveyed on canvas. His raw self-expression connects authentically with audiences across time.
The Sorrowing Old Man (1890) - Heavy brushstrokes and an anguished face externalize his inner grief and distress.
"I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream." -Vincent Van Gogh
Mark Rothko – Moody fields of color in paintings like ‘No. 5/No.22’ were meant to stir specific emotions in viewers through color alone. His brooding colors, such as those in No.61, envelop viewers, evoking a melancholic sublime.
"I paint to evoke a changing language of symbols." - Mark Rothko
Rothko carefully chose hues to establish a brooding, melancholic, or meditative mood. Dark browns and deep reds create gravity and solemnity.
He wanted viewers to experience a kind of awe or transcendence before the colored voids, like at a religious ceremony. The colors evoke the metaphysical. His monumental canvases immerse viewers physically, making them feel small before the pulsing color fields. This intensifies the emotional effect.
"Art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take risks." Mark Rothko
Jean-Michel Basquiat – Raw, scribbled paintings like ‘Riding with Death’ exuded his inner life.
His paintings have an intense, frenetic energy conveyed through scribbled lines, chaotic compositions, and bold marks. His works seem to exude strong emotions like anger, anxiety, loneliness, or euphoria. The loose style captures a kind of frenzied feeling flowing directly from his psyche.
"I don't listen to what art critics say. I don't know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is." Jean Michel Basquiat
He painted gritty street scenes, words, symbols, and figures that spoke to his urban upbringing in New York City. The rawness of his style thus grew from emotional connections to his environment.
"I don't think about art when I am working I think about life."
Jackson Pollocks drip painting technique is highly gestural, suggesting the artist was directly channeling his unconscious onto the canvas. The splattered paint embodies a raw, unmediated creative process.
However, Pollock resisted being neatly categorized by critics and theorists eager to label him. In 1956, when speaking with art historian Selden Rodman, Pollock rejected terms like “abstract expressionism,” “non-objective,” and “nonrepresentational” being applied to his work. He asserted that at times he was very representational, and a little representational overall. Pollock thus challenged assumptions and simplifications about his creative motivations and content.
"The modern artist is expressing an inner world - the energy, motion, and inner forces." - Jackson Pollock
"I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. Techniques are just a means of arriving at a statement." - Jackson Pollock
Marc Chagall created fantastical, dream-like paintings that evoked a complex range of emotions and moods related to his life and Jewish heritage.
Memories from his small village in Russia permeate his work. Scenes of village festivals, wedding celebrations, and fiddlers on rooftops convey deep nostalgia and sentimentality.
Amidst the wonder, Chagall’s work also reflects moments of sadness and loss. Solitary figures or more somber colors occasionally suggest loneliness or grief. Despite his works being emotion-invoking not all were melancholic.
"If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing." - Marc Chagall
Chagall painted many affectionate representations of his wife Bella. His love imbues these vibrant, poetic portraits and flying couples with warmth.
Edvard Munch famous work ‘The Scream’ depicted the anxiety and dread he felt in a moment of intense anguish. Other paintings like ‘The Sick Child’ expressed his grief.
Despite radical simplification, the landscape in the picture is recognizable as the Kristiania Fjord seen from Ekeberg, with a broad view over the fjord, the town, and the hills beyond. In the background to the left, at the end of the path with the balustrade that cuts diagonally across the picture, we see two strolling figures, often regarded as two friends whom Munch mentions in notes relating to the picture.
But the figure in the front is the first to capture the viewer’s attention. The figure is unclear and it is hard to say whether it is a man or a woman, young or old – or even if it is human at all.
"From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity." Edvard Munch
Figures are often isolated, turned away, or positioned to convey psychological states like loneliness, grief, or alienation. Munch incorporated atmospheric elements like menacing clouds or waves to mirror internal emotions externally. His Stream-of-Consciousness Style like loose, gestural application of paint evokes a spontaneity that immediately transfers emotion to canvas.
Looking on the Bright Side: Artists Who Capture Joy
In a world that often feels bleak, art has the power to uplift. Though many renowned works depict suffering and darkness, some artists consciously harnessed their brushes to explore cheerier emotions like bliss, love, delight, and optimism.
French artist Henri Matisse pushed boundaries with his lively Fauvist works like Dance I and The Joy of Life. Vibrant colors and energetic brushwork convey freedom and jubilation. Matisse sought to share the euphoric state he achieved while painting.
"I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have a light joyousness of springtime, which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me. " -Henri Matisse
There is so much to say about Matisse. In his later life, Matisse, who was partially reliant on a wheelchair, continued his artistic endeavors by creating cut-paper collages and working as a graphic artist.
American artist Grandma Moses(Anna Mary Robertson Moses) began painting in her 70s, depicting nostalgic, idyllic scenes from her rural childhood like Catching the Thanksgiving Turkey. Her charming, folk art compositions radiate comfort and wholesome happiness.
"Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be." Grandma Moses
Her work is cited as an example of an individual who successfully began a career in the arts at an advanced age. Her works have been shown and sold in the United States and abroad and have been marketed on greeting cards and other merchandise.
Many Impressionists, like Claude Monet with his delightful Water Lilies series, aimed to share the joy they felt illuminating nature’s beauty. Light-filled landscapes elicit a sense of wonder and contentment.
He expertly captured the pleasure and emotional lift he found immersing himself in nature. In some ways his works convey uplifting emotions. His loose, broken brushstrokes and visible thick paint convey the motion and vitality of scenes, like shimmering water or rustling leaves. This energetic style elicits excitement.
"Eventually, my eyes were opened, and I really understood nature. I learned to love at the same time."
By painting outdoors, Monet aimed to recreate the euphoria he felt in nature. That uplifting emotion translates into the work.
In multiple works like Haystacks or Rouen Cathedral, Monet captured different light/weather, showing nature’s ability to uplift in any setting.
"I perhaps owe having to become a painter to flowers." Claude Monet
Wassily Kandinsky was deeply interested in expressing emotions and spiritual meanings through abstract art. Here are some ways his paintings reveal his focus on inner feelings.
Kandinsky associated certain colors with specific emotions or mystical values. Blue symbolized spirituality, yellow cheerful emotions, and red for aggression.
The placement and interaction of shapes was meant to evoke tension, excitement, stillness, etc.
Diagonals conveyed motion and dynamism. He let spontaneous brushstrokes directly capture his inner state, without planning. This revealed his unconscious feelings.
"Everything starts from a dot." Wassily Kandinsky
One of his techniques, I especially like, is his association of music with color, he tried to visually capture melodies, instruments, and rhythms in energetic compositions. I remember teaching my class of four-year-old’s, a little about Kandinsky. We used his method as inspiration to paint canvases with music. They turned out pretty beautifully.
"Color is the power that directly influences the soul." Wassily Kandinsky
Composition VII considered his most complex visualization of music in painting, full of clashing dissonances.
Music was a critical inspiration for the evolution of Kandinsky’s groundbreaking abstract paintings. In particular, the innovative works of Viennese composer Arnold Schönberg significantly influenced Kandinsky.
Kandinsky’s theories on art’s potential to evoke psychological, physical, and emotional responses.
Kandinsky was also synesthetic, which means, he associated specific colors with particular instruments and musical notes. This shaped his approach of conveying melodies, harmonies, and rhythms directly on the canvas through visual means.
"Each color lives by mysterious life." Wassily Kandinsky
Yellow-Red-Blue has a rhythmic, melodic quality with its sequence of forms and colors. Kandinsky described it as a "symphony."
In dark times, we need the light. For centuries, artists have explored happiness, delight, love, and optimism as worthy subjects. Their vibrant works remind us beauty persists. As Monet said, “Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment.” May the dazzling hues of creative spirits brighten your day!
Exploring how different artists throughout history have used painting to express the full range of human emotion is fascinating.
What messages of positivity and hope can we find in art, if we take time to look? What do you see?