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VOL. 43, NO. 14 FRIDAY APRIL 6, 2012
Explore Nature This Spring... See It ‘Up Close’ With Van Gogh
am always obliged to go it out. Created between 1886 and and gaze at a blade of grass, 1890 in Paris, Arles, Saint-Rémy, a pine-tree branch, an ear of and Auvers, the works in the exhiwheat, to calm myself,” Vincent bition concentrate on an important van Gogh wrote in a letter to his and previously overlooked aspect sister, Wilhemina, in July of of van Gogh’s work: “close-ups” 1889. An artist of exceptional that bring familiar subjects such as intensity, not only in his use of landscape elements, still lifes, and color and exuberant application flowers into the extreme foreof paint but also in his personal life, van Gogh was powerfully and passionately drawn to nature. From 1886, when van Gogh left Antwerp for Paris, to 1890 when he ended his own life in Auvers, van Gogh’s feverish artistic experimentation and zeal for the natural world propelled him to radically refashion his still lifes and landscapes. With an ardent desire to engage the viewer with the strength of the emotions he experienced before nature, van Gogh radically altered and at times even abandoned traditional Iris, 1889. Vincent Willem van Gogh, Dutch, 1853pictorial strategies in 1890. Oil on thinned cardboard, mounted on order to create still canvas, 24-1/2 by 19 inches (62.2 by 48.3 cm). lifes and landscapes, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. the likes of which had never before been seen. ground of the composition or focus Van Gogh Up Close, a major on them in ways that are entirely exhibition organized by the unexpected and without precedent. Philadelphia Museum of Art and These landscapes and still lifes
After unsuccessfully pursuing careers as an art dealer, teacher, and pastor, Vincent van Gogh (18531890), prompted by his brother Theo, began to study art in 1880. In the Netherlands in 1885, he completed his first major works using a palette of browns, greens, grays, and blacks. A year later, his work underwent a striking shift when, arriving in Paris, he was confronted for the first time by the Impressionist paintings of Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, and by the new pointillist works of Seurat and others. These progressive artists inspired him to lighten his palette and modernize his brushstroke. At roughly the same time, van Gogh began to collect Japanese Almond Blossom, 1890. Vincent Willem van Gogh, Dutch, 1853-1890. Oil on canvas, woodblock prints, fascinat28-15/16 by 36-1/4 inches (73.5 by 92 cm). Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. ed by their vibrant color, high horizon lines, tilting be seen in the United States only in sources of inspiration for him. Philadelphia (through May 6, While van Gogh was loudly dis- perspectives, and truncated or 2012) before traveling to the missive of photography, the medi- unusually cropped edges. These National Gallery of Canada in um offers intriguing parallels with influences encouraged van Gogh Ottawa. The exhibition is accom- his work and it is possible that van to experiment with a radical treatpanied by a fully illustrated cata- Gogh would have been fascinated ment of field and space, flattenlogue and offers a wide range of by contemporary landscape pho- ing and compressing the picture plane in his paintings in order to programs. tographs. Up Close features over 70 “The exhibition explores an create a sense of shifting perspecworks, including 46 paintings by van Gogh and more than 30 comparative works like
Garden in Auvers, circa 1890. Vincent Willem van Gogh, Dutch, 1853 25-3/16 by 31-1/2 inches (64 by 80 cm). Private Collection.
Vineyards at Auvers, 1890. Vincent Willem van Gogh, Dutch, 1853 25-3/16 by 31-1/2 inches (64 by 80 cm). Saint Louis Art Museum.
the National Gallery of Canada, presents a group of the artist’s most daring and innovative works that broke with the past and dramatically altered the course of modern painting. The exhibition opened in February, but Spring seems the perfect season to check
1890.
have not previously been seen together or identified before as critical to our understanding of van Gogh’s artistic achievement. Van Gogh Up Close, includes major loans from museums and private collections in Europe, North America, and Japan, and can
Japanese woodblock prints by Utagawa Hiroshige Oil on canvas, and Hayashi Roshü; European prints and drawings by Jean Corot, Camille Pissarro, and Jacob Ruisdael; and photographs by Frederick Evans, August Kotzsch, and others. Van Gogh was an avid collector of Japanese and European prints and drawings by artists whose aesthetic devices served as
important facet of van Gogh’s work that underscores his importance as a path-finding modern artist,” comments Timothy Rub, the George D. Widener Director and CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “In seeking to share the intensity of his emotional response to the world around him as directly as possible, van Gogh took the traditional methods making pictures and changed the rules.”
1890. Oil on canvas,
tive and tension. Working initially in the apartment he shared with Theo in Montmartre, van Gogh painted a series of still lifes of flowers and fruit such as Still Life with Pears (1888, Gemäldegalerie Neue Meister, Dresden) and Sunflowers (1887, Metropolitan Museum of Art). In these works, objects are often seen from above, yet are placed very close to the picture plane in a tightly cropped space (Continued on page 2)