Prisoners’ Round by Vincent van Gogh

Tweet

Prisoners’ Round (aka ‘The Round of the Prisoners” or “Prisoners Exercising”) is one of the noted work by Vincent van Gogh. It was painted in 1890, during his stay in the Saint-Remy’s hospital.

There he was confined in the building without much allowance to wander outside. He would paint the scenes from the windows of his room. His known painting, The Starry Night and some other notable works are executed in the same way.

Other way for him was to rely on his memories. The only painting sold by the artist, The Red Vineyard is such prominent work he made from his memories of the vineyard he once visited.

The third way to have subject for paintings was copying his favorite artists’ works. From 1887 to 1890, he admitted that, he craved for new subjects and thus started to copy some of his favorite artists’ works. Some names of his favorite artists are Emile Bernard, Virginie Demont Brenton, Eugene Delacroix, Jean-Francois Millet, Rembrandt, etc. Such copies are collectively called as the “Copies by Vincent van Gogh.”

Though, called copies, Van Gogh used to insert his own colors, emotions and style in his copies, only grabbing the subject and composition of the original. Sometimes, the copies made by Van gogh out-shined the original works.

Prisoners’ Round is such copy of French artist Gustave Dore‘s engraving called Newgate Exercise yard. Suppositions are, that the middle figure in the painting facing right at the viewer is Vincent van Gogh himself. But, not every art-critic accepts it to be true.

Currently, residing in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, the work is well-known among the art-community.