The Van Gogh Gallery Blog

Happy New Year and thank you for helping support our site to make 2009 an excellent year!  We have had a lot of great feedback from Van Gogh Gallery visitors in the form of blog comments and email messages.  We appreciate all of your input on the site and our blog.  We are also thrilled to have had such an impressive response on our Van Gogh Gallery Facebook page.  We are on track to reach 1,000 fans by the end of 2009, and we value the comments and insights our fans share with us and the Van Gogh community on Facebook everyday!  If you haven’t had a chance to join this community, become a fan today and be a part of the on-going conversation covering everything Van Gogh.  Happy New Year and here’s to an exciting 2010!

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 We would like to thank all of our visitors for supporting the Van Gogh Gallery and wish you the best this holiday season.  It seems only fitting that our wishes come from Van Gogh himself, so here are some of his holiday musings and a drawing from a letter he wrote to his brother Theo in December of 1882:

“My intention in these two, and in the first little old man, is one and the same, namely to express the peculiar sentiment of Christmas and New Years Eve. Both in Holland and England this is always more or less religious, in fact, it is that way everywhere, at least in Brittany, and in the Alsace, too. Now one need not agree exactly with the form of that religious sentiment, but if it is sincere, it is a feeling one must respect. And personally, I can fully share it and even need it,”

Letter Source:

Webexhibits

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Although Van Gogh preferred the French countryside to the congested streets of Paris, he did live in Paris for a short time with his brother Theo at number 54 Rue Lepic in Montmartre. The art community was active at the time in 1874-75 and the Impressionists, or the grands boulevards artists as they were referred to, often gathered together there for exhibitions. Van Gogh was inspired by works in museums of Paris as well as the works of his contemporaries. Surrounded by Impressionists as well as the up and coming Pointillists, Van Gogh observed the works of other artists and drew from their techniques in the continual development of his style.

It is surprising the number of artists who have lived in Paris at one time or another in their lives. The neighborhood of Montmartre especially has attracted a multitude of famous artists including Renoir and Picasso as well as unknown artists. During the same time that Van Gogh lived in Montmartre, Edgar Degas lived a few doors down on Rue Lepic and Toulouse-Lautrec lived around the corner.

Today the art community is still alive in Montmartre. Visitors can sit and have their portraits painted in a matter of minutes, or do as Van Gogh did and observe the works of other artists. There are even walks and tours which take you by some of the places where these great artists like Van Gogh once lived and created their masterpieces.

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Rarely, since the time that they were created, has a large collection of Van Gogh’s original letters and his corresponding works been seen together.  But in January of 2010, the main galleries of Burlington House, the Royal Academy of Arts will be host to an exhibition of over 35 original Van Gogh letters and about 65 paintings and 30 drawings relating to the letters on display.  As the first major Van Gogh exhibition in London in over forty years, The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters, will be a monumental event for Van Gogh admirers.

Van Gogh is widely known for his prolific and extraordinary work as an artist, but his expression in the written word is also impressive.  When analyzing different works of art, art historians and appreciators try to uncover meaning in the work itself, but it is rare that the intent, motivation and perception can be drawn directly from the words of the artist himself especially posthumously.  Such an accurate record of one man’s work, life and time in history is hard to find, and we are privileged to have this account preserved for the public to view today.

This exhibition will not only show some of the finished paintings and drawings referred to in Van Gogh’s correspondence to his greatest confidants, visitors will also see the letter sketches of works in progress to get a more complete  picture of the man behind the brush and the pen and his development both as an artist and a person. 

According to the Royal Academy of Arts, “Highlights of the exhibition will include Self-portrait as an Artist (1888) and The Yellow House (1888) from the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Still-life: Drawing Board with Onions (1889) from the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo; Vincent’s Chair with His Pipe (1888) from the National Gallery, London; and Entrance to the Public Park in Arles (1888) from the Phillips Collection, Washington DC.”

The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters Exhibition is curated by Ann Dumas of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in collaboration with Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.  The exhibit is sponsored by the Bank of New York Mellon.

For tickets and information about The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters please visit the Royal Academy of Arts.

In cooperation with the Royal Academy of Arts, the Van Gogh Gallery will be having a contest to win tickets to this exhibition.  Please continue to check the Van Gogh Gallery website for more details over the next few weeks.

Vincent Van Gogh. Self Portrait as a Painter. 1887 - 1888. Oil on canvas. 65.2 x 50.2 cm. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

With the autumn in full swing, this time of year brings to mind harvest time and preparing for next year.  Van Gogh must have thought the same thing as he was capturing The Reaper and The Sower on canvas.  Inspired by Jean-François Millet, Van Gogh created several “Reaper” and “Sower” paintings between the years 1888 and 1889.

The Sower, shown above left, was painted by Van Gogh in November of 1888.  In this painting, Van Gogh was experimenting with the use of vibrant complimentary colors – something he would continue to do and something he would become known for in some of his most famous paintings like Starry Night.  In a letter to his brother Theo from November of 1888, Van Gogh described the colors he was using in the Sower as “Immense citron-yellow disk for the sun. Sky green-yellow with pink clouds. The field violet, the sower and the tree Prussian blue.”  Although the sun is a large and beaming yellow in this painting, there is still a sense of darkness that is present in the midst of fall.     

In Wheat Fields with Reaper at Sunrise, shown above right, again the subject is simple and again the use of color intense.  With the brilliant yellows and golds of the wheat fields in this painting there is more of a feeling of life and light contrary to the subject matter.  Van Gogh described this contrast in another letter to Theo from September of 1889 when he wrote, “For I see in this reaper – a vague figure toiling away for all he’s worth in the midst of the heat to finish his task – I see in him the image of death, in the sense that humanity might be the wheat he is reaping. So it is, if you like, the opposite of the sower which I tried to do before. But there’s no sadness in this death, this one takes place in broad daylight with a sun flooding everything with light of pure gold.” Contributing to the effect of the opposites is also the fact that The Sower takes place at sunset while the Reaper at sunrise.     

Van Gogh completed several different Sower and Reaper paintings; to see them or to find out where they are located today, view our catalog.

Letters Source:

Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Arles, c. 25 November 1888
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Saint-Rémy, 5 or 6 September 1889

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Now is the perfect time to start planning your Van Gogh tour for next spring or summer.  There are many tour companies which offer bike tours of Van Gogh country in France and The Netherlands.  You can also rent bikes and plan your own tour in the steps of Van Gogh.  If cycling is not for you, many of the historic Van Gogh sites are easily accessible on foot or by car.  Catch dinner in Van Gogh’s last home at the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise, see the Irises outside of the Saint Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, or sip coffee at the Café Terrace on the Place du Forum (pictured on the left), now named Café Van Gogh, in Arles.  Explore the beautiful countryside, and take in the historic sites that have been captured in some of Van Gogh’s most famous works.  Have you already toured the Van Gogh sites in Europe?  Comment and share your experiences or become a fan of Van Gogh Gallery on Facebook and share your Van Gogh tour photos with us.

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Over the weekend, I had the extreme pleasure of seeing Van Gogh: Brush with Genius at a local OMNIMAX theatre.   The film by Peter Knapp and Francois Bertrand, brings to life the words and works of Van Gogh on a larger than life scale.  Narrated though the words of Van Gogh, as taken from his letters, the film tells Vincent’s story largely in his own words.

Some of the most interesting commentary was on Van Gogh’s shift from his darker early works which use little color to his later works in which he embraced color and often demonstrated the dramatic effects of using complimentary colors.  These effects became even more apparent seeing each yellow and violet brush stroke paired together on the big screen.  One such painting, besides the most obvious example, Starry Night with its vibrant yellows against violet, is the painting of the Bank of the Oise at Auvers on the left. 

Another enjoyable facet of the movie was seeing the real life places, which still exist today, where Van Gogh lived and that he captured in some of his most famous paintings.   Following his life from the early years in the Netherlands to Paris to Arles and Saint-Remy and finally to Auvers-sur-Oise, Van Gogh becomes less of a myth as you experience his homes and landscapes through viewing their present day counterparts.       

If you have the opportunity to see Van Gogh: Brush with Genius, you will have a chance to experience Van Gogh’s life and work in a way that even he could not.  If you have already seen the film, share your comments about it here.

A new application for the iPhone called “Yours, Vincent” is now available for Van Gogh fans to download.  The application takes iPhone users through selected accounts from Vincent van Gogh’s letters along with accompanying images of his works.  The app was developed to go along with the exhibit “Van Gogh’s Letters: The Artist Speaks” which opens today and will run through January 3, 2010 at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.  Created by the Van Gogh Museum in collaboration with Antenna Audio, the application is one of the first of its kind developed by a European museum.  This new application is available for free from the iTunes App Store.

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 The Van Gogh Gallery is now on Facebook! Because of the high level of interest from our audience in updates and information on all things related to the life and work of Vincent van Gogh, we have created our own Facebook page. Become a fan and help us get the conversation started! Our intention is that the Van Gogh Gallery Facebook page becomes a platform for Van Gogh lovers to share discussions about favorite Van Gogh paintings, photos from trips to museums and Van Gogh sites, news about Van Gogh exhibits and more. Please join us today by becoming a fan and help build the Van Gogh Gallery community on Facebook!

I recently received another inquiry about some drawings owned by a Van Gogh Gallery visitor. The four drawings shown were sent to me with the following inquiry:

“I purchased 4 pencil drawings some years back at a flea market. They aren’t signed but 3 different museums have said that they are late 1800’s and look to possibly be Van Gogh. I wanted to send you three pictures. Two are pencil drawings and one is a faint sketch on the back of a drawing. “

Our reader would like to get any feedback on these drawings, so if you recognize any of them as being drawn by a particular artist, whether it is Van Gogh or someone else, please share your expert opinions with us. We would love to learn more about these pieces. Please comment and share your thoughts.
 
  

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