Formal Analysis: of Van Gogh’s “Corridor in the Asylum”

Formal Analysis of Van Gogh’s “Corridor in the Asylum”

In the drawing Corridor in the Asylum by Vincent Van Gogh, made in 1889, there are many elements that stand out to the viewer, most notable is the singular figure in the middleground of the image. By placing this ominous figure alone in a long dark hallway Van Gogh is creating a melancholic and gloomy depiction of the Asylum, one which he wishes to leave. His utilization of a one-point perspective to create a three-dimensional drawing and his use of intense lights and shadows add to this eariness. The arches in the corridor make a tunnel, creating frames inside the frame of the paper itself, all leading to the final rectangle in the background where there is an object. That area stands out because of Van Gogh’s play with light and shadow. The foreground and background are differentiated by their values, the foreground being lighter than the corridor in the middle, and are divided by a border of bright light coming from a perpendicular corridor. This calls attention to the object at the end of the corridor by making it brighter, a lot brighter, in fact, creating a wonderful contrast between the two.

Going off first impressions, the viewer’s eye might get caught by the bright light at the end of the hallway highlighted due to the leading lines and the dark hallway leading up to it. The other thing that captures the eye is the figure, so basic it is almost a silhouette of a person. The figure is very small compared to the objects in the foreground and we don’t have a clear view of their face or features which leads us to speculate that this person isn’t of much importance, that they simply don’t want to be seen, or that they just happened to walk into a room while the drawing was being made. This person is most likely a man due to the clothing, pants weren’t common use for women at that time. The title of the image also helps us identify the subject, since the setting is an Asylum we can infer that the person is either a patient, a visitor, or an employee. The figure is in motion, it’s not as if they were sitting for a portrait, we are meant to imagine them walking through the hallway and into the room since we only get a singular instance of this scene. Choosing to place the subject almost at their destination but still moving towards it was an interesting decision because you get a sense that the subject came from somewhere rather than them simply being stagnant and posing for the scene. 

There is plenty of movement in the image, the person in the drawing is obviously entering a room because we see him staring through the door frame, he seems to be walking due to the separation of his legs. It also has movent through Van Gogh’s countless visual strokes in the image. The brush strokes are very obvious, they are short, quick, and colorful. Some are curved to coincide with the shape he is trying to capture whereas other lines are straight and close together to create the illusion of a singular color. This is very common with post-impressionistic color theory ideas, utilizing color to create a scene and varying values to create lighter and darker areas. Even though the drawing is post-impressionistic meaning that the elements in the image are a more simplistic, non-photorealistic, and not necessarily accurate representation of the real world you do get a very good understanding of the scene. Although the lines are jagged and there are gaps in the colors due to the quick brush strokes there is accuracy and attention to detail. The rims on the arches for example are very well highlighted even though they aren’t the main focus of the painting, the tiles on the floor in the foreground are the most simple of lines varying in thickness but you do get exactly what they are there to convey. This jaggedness and gaps of color in this specific image add to the mysteriousness of the man and the Asylum he is wandering around. 

Most of the colors used for this drawing are fairly muted giving this sense of staleness to the image. Van Gogh utilizes darker and lighter colors to define spaces. Dark reds represent the darker shadows whereas light reds, which are very close to pink, define where there is more light. Van Gogh also uses this technique to draw the viewer’s eye to the end of the corridor, a bright light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Turquoise and white are used as highlights on the arches. The three dominant colors in this drawing are yellow, green, and red. Red consisting of most of the floor, yellow for the walls and ceiling, and green for the shadows in the yellow corridors. Although these colors might be construed as tranquil I believe they are being used in a more literal way, to show an accurate depiction of the Asylum rather than trying to convey a sense of tranquility that obviously wouldn’t be present in an Asylum. 

Utilizing Ingres paper for the drawing gives it a canvas-like texture throughout the entire image-making areas with less pigment have more texture to them. The image has a wide variety of textures, displayed through the concentrated use of brushstrokes and lack thereof. Most of the image is covered in large quantities of brushstrokes either meant to convey the sense of a single color occupying a surface or to create darker values, in the areas where the shadows are more prominent we get a greater amount of strokes along with them being closer together. Where the drawing is brighter there are fewer strokes and more space between them. There are even areas where there seem to be no strokes at all like on some of the brighter areas on the columns, they end up having a pink coloring to them because of the pink laid paper. The size of the paper is approximately 25×29 inches which is fairly large for a drawing. Even though the subjects in the image are not lifesized we still get a sense of the largeness of the location and a sense of the lack of importance the figure has in regard to the location.

The way Van Gogh is directing the viewer’s perception is truly remarkable. The use of depth throughout the image with its use of colors and brush strokes, guiding the viewer through this dark and frightening corridor with the implementation of perspective and coming across an ominous figure in a mysterious corridor immerses the viewer into Van Gogh’s psyche while painting and living in this asylum. It may seem simply documentary but all these meticulous decisions made by Van Gogh, the size, the colors, the angle, leads us to believe that he wasn’t simply documenting the corridor, it was a plea for rescue to his brother Theo. Perhaps Van Gogh felt like the figure in the drawing, a lost wanderer in a dark hallway in a location foreign to him.