Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) was known in art history as socially isolated, mentally unstable and having an extremely emotional response to his environment. Growing up in his parents’ home at Etten in The Hague, van Gogh had taught himself to paint by copying prints and studying drawing manuals. His first aim was to master drawing in charcoal and in perspective, but in any case, he was totally reliant on his brother for financial support. And as he died in his 30s, van Gogh enjoyed a very short career.
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van Gogh
Garden at Arles, 1888
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van Gogh
Poppy field, 1890
In April 2017, the National Gallery of Victoria will put on Van Gogh and the Seasons. After long negotiations with overseas museums, this exhibition will feature works lent by international museums, including the van Gogh Museum Amsterdam, the Kröller-Müller Museum Otterlo, the Von der Heydt Museum Wuppertal and Triton Foundation, all in The Netherlands, The National Gallery London and The Armand Hammer Museum of Art Los Angeles. Curated by the former Head of Collections at Amsterdam’s van Gogh Museum, the NGV will walk visitors through 50 works by van Gogh in four separate sections, each devoted to one of the four seasons. Additional documentary material, including works from Van Gogh’s own art collection, will show his deep interest in literature and nature.
Garden at Arles, 1888
A spring scene
The seasons had great meaning for van Gogh, representing the circle of life within nature – birth, bloom, maturity and death that he represented in his dramatic, expressive and colourful works. For Vincent, this ongoing cycle represented the greatness of nature. So he repeatedly painted scenes that richly evoked the sensory influences particular to each season: spring had blossoming orchards and flowering meadows; summer had fields of ripe wheat shimmering under the hot sun; autumn gave abundant harvests; and winter depicted with peasants digging potatoes out of frozen fields, or sharing miserable meals. Seeing a van Gogh up close will be an exciting first for many Australians.
During a critical two-year (1886-1888) stay in Paris, van Gogh met Impressionists, saw their works and particularly loved Paul Seurat’s experimental brushwork and Paul Gauguin’s colours. The Melbourne exhibition includes works that depicted places in the Netherlands that were the setting for the critical events in the artist’s chaotic life eg the Dutch region of Brabant, where van Gogh was born and raised. But it also includes the paintings from France done in the late 1880s eg Arles, where the artist experienced his greatest creativity; Saint-Rémy de Provence, where he was treated for mental illness in an asylum; and Auvers-sur-Oise, where van Gogh committed suicide in 1890.
I am assuming that being in Arles in 1888 had a significance for the artist; it was from Provence's nature that all of his strongest colours evolved. Think of brilliant van Gogh sunshine and the earthy, fertile, sun-baked Provencal region of France everyone loves. This was where van Gogh best discovered that colour was a perfect expression of a love of nature. Even his letters, written in Arles, expressed colour verbally “my house here is painted out in fresh butter yellow, with raw-green shutters, and it sits full in the sun on the square where there is a green garden, plane trees, pink laurels, acacias. Inside its completely white-washed and the floor is red brick. And the intense blue sky above!’
The seasons had great meaning for van Gogh, representing the circle of life within nature – birth, bloom, maturity and death that he represented in his dramatic, expressive and colourful works. For Vincent, this ongoing cycle represented the greatness of nature. So he repeatedly painted scenes that richly evoked the sensory influences particular to each season: spring had blossoming orchards and flowering meadows; summer had fields of ripe wheat shimmering under the hot sun; autumn gave abundant harvests; and winter depicted with peasants digging potatoes out of frozen fields, or sharing miserable meals. Seeing a van Gogh up close will be an exciting first for many Australians.
During a critical two-year (1886-1888) stay in Paris, van Gogh met Impressionists, saw their works and particularly loved Paul Seurat’s experimental brushwork and Paul Gauguin’s colours. The Melbourne exhibition includes works that depicted places in the Netherlands that were the setting for the critical events in the artist’s chaotic life eg the Dutch region of Brabant, where van Gogh was born and raised. But it also includes the paintings from France done in the late 1880s eg Arles, where the artist experienced his greatest creativity; Saint-Rémy de Provence, where he was treated for mental illness in an asylum; and Auvers-sur-Oise, where van Gogh committed suicide in 1890.
I am assuming that being in Arles in 1888 had a significance for the artist; it was from Provence's nature that all of his strongest colours evolved. Think of brilliant van Gogh sunshine and the earthy, fertile, sun-baked Provencal region of France everyone loves. This was where van Gogh best discovered that colour was a perfect expression of a love of nature. Even his letters, written in Arles, expressed colour verbally “my house here is painted out in fresh butter yellow, with raw-green shutters, and it sits full in the sun on the square where there is a green garden, plane trees, pink laurels, acacias. Inside its completely white-washed and the floor is red brick. And the intense blue sky above!’
Poppy field, 1890
A summer scene
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van Gogh
Two Peasant Women Digging in Field with Snow, 1890
In the end, it didn’t matter. During the final van Gogh era, 1888–1890, his paintings were on show at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris where they attracted attention. And in 1890, his works were exhibited in Brussels, with some success. So when van Gogh assessed his artistic legacy as of only secondary importance in 1880, despite his works having begun to attract critical attention, perhaps he was being unduly modest. Or perhaps he was too depressed to appreciate it all.
van Gogh and the Seasons, the NGV's Winter Masterpieces season, will run from Apr 28-Jul 9, 2017. See the NGV's home page for the some of the paintings. The exhibition will be accompanied by a scholarly catalogue, a children’s publication, talks and tours.
Many thanks to Carolyn McDowall, The Culture Concept Circle, 2016, and to Urban Melbourne.
In all the world’s art galleries and private collections, there are only 800 paintings signed by Vincent van Gogh. Yet even that was a remarkable achievement as van Gogh suffered from depression and died when he was only 37 years old! So his life’s work was basically produced in only a decade, the last three years of his life proving the most productive. This was when his observations of the seasonal changes within the natural world were most profound.
In one sense Vincent van Gogh’s letters to Theo suggested the artist was a religious man who saw the hand of God everywhere in nature. But did he believe these seasons were like the cycles of life: birth, youth, maturity and old age were like spring, summer, autumn and winter? And did he find spirituality in changing moods and colours of the seasons? NGV curator Ted Gott said yes: it was the linkage to emotion, vigorous brushstroke and religious expression of colour that made van Gogh a unique artist. The viewer can see the energy and dynamism of the artist’s distinct brushstrokes, which almost leap off the canvas with vitality.
I have problems with this analysis. Firstly I am not at all sure that Vincent saw himself as a religious man, at least in the traditional sense. And secondly will Australians be as aware of the changing seasons as residents in the Netherlands are? Of course I know we swim in summer and put a jumper on in winter, but even our evergreen trees look unchanged throughout the year. And if an Australian viewer has never seen snow, can he “find snow beautiful and burning sun beautiful etc”, as Vincent wrote with excitement?
In one sense Vincent van Gogh’s letters to Theo suggested the artist was a religious man who saw the hand of God everywhere in nature. But did he believe these seasons were like the cycles of life: birth, youth, maturity and old age were like spring, summer, autumn and winter? And did he find spirituality in changing moods and colours of the seasons? NGV curator Ted Gott said yes: it was the linkage to emotion, vigorous brushstroke and religious expression of colour that made van Gogh a unique artist. The viewer can see the energy and dynamism of the artist’s distinct brushstrokes, which almost leap off the canvas with vitality.
I have problems with this analysis. Firstly I am not at all sure that Vincent saw himself as a religious man, at least in the traditional sense. And secondly will Australians be as aware of the changing seasons as residents in the Netherlands are? Of course I know we swim in summer and put a jumper on in winter, but even our evergreen trees look unchanged throughout the year. And if an Australian viewer has never seen snow, can he “find snow beautiful and burning sun beautiful etc”, as Vincent wrote with excitement?
Two Peasant Women Digging in Field with Snow, 1890
A winter scene
In the end, it didn’t matter. During the final van Gogh era, 1888–1890, his paintings were on show at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris where they attracted attention. And in 1890, his works were exhibited in Brussels, with some success. So when van Gogh assessed his artistic legacy as of only secondary importance in 1880, despite his works having begun to attract critical attention, perhaps he was being unduly modest. Or perhaps he was too depressed to appreciate it all.
It is difficult for modern viewers to understand how hard he struggled to earn a living from his passionate art. Already, during the first decade after his death, Vincent van Gogh’s name had become integral to the modern world as he inspired the next generation. I can only hope the Fauvists, artists who redefined pure colour and form as means of communicating the artist's emotional state, thanked van Gogh properly.
van Gogh and the Seasons, the NGV's Winter Masterpieces season, will run from Apr 28-Jul 9, 2017. See the NGV's home page for the some of the paintings. The exhibition will be accompanied by a scholarly catalogue, a children’s publication, talks and tours.
Many thanks to Carolyn McDowall, The Culture Concept Circle, 2016, and to Urban Melbourne.