The Van Gogh Gallery Blog

Van Gogh’s paintings can be seen in museums and galleries all over the world, and while there really is no comparison for seeing his brushstrokes up close and in person, it is amazing how many excellent virtual Van Gogh displays exist online. Virtual tours have improved over the years now offering the viewer an ever greater perspective of the object and its surroundings. In this virtual tour of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, you can see many of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and the works hanging alongside of them all from the comfort of your computer. If you prefer to travel online to Paris a virtual tour of the Musee d’Orsay will take you the Van Gogh collection there.

If you would rather avoid the sometimes dizzying effects of the virtual tour, check out some of the interactive exhibitions online such as the “Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night” exhibition which took place a couple of years ago at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, but continues to display online. There are also a selection of videos on Van Gogh’s works and research on the Van Gogh channel on Art Babble. So if you want to experience the works of Van Gogh, but can’t make it to the museum, a Van Gogh tour may just be a click away.

Although Gauguin and other contemporaries had a profound impact on Van Gogh’s work, Van Gogh was also greatly influenced by some of his predecessors.  The work of French artist Jean Francois Millet, in particular, resonated with Van Gogh.  In many ways Millet’s experiences and the subjects he chose to paint mirrored Van Gogh’s life and work.   Van Gogh could relate to Millet’s paintings of peasant life and the depiction of the plight of laborers.  It was this realistic approach that Van Gogh often emulated in many of his paintings as shown.

Today we are still comparing the works of Van Gogh and Millet.  In fact, this month a special exhibition will open at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston where Van Gogh’s The Sower, 1888 will be seen along with Millet’s The Sower, 1850 for the first time ever.

A “new” Van Gogh painting was announced in The Netherlands today.  Despite the huge body of work that Van Gogh produced and the number of claims to Van Gogh discoveries that have been made, it is extremely rare that a new Van Gogh is actually authenticated.  This and the fact that the late Dirk Hannema, art collector and curator, had been trying to prove the painting’s authenticity since 1975, makes the painting, Le Blute-Fin Mill, an extraordinary discovery.  As the first Van Gogh to be authenticated since 1995, Le Blute-Fin Mill has the art world buzzing. 

The painting, which went on display today at the Museum de Fundatie in the town of Zwolle, The Netherlands, features a large windmill, a popular subject for Van Gogh’s Parisian paintings from 1886.  In fact, Van Gogh’s Le Moulin de Blute-Fin shows the same mill from a different angle. 

The exhibition “The Discovery – Vincent van Gogh’s De Mole ‘Le blute-fin’ in the collection of Museum de Fundatie containing the work will be on display until July 4, 2010.   To view the newly authenticated painting click the Museum de Fundatie link below.

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Museum de Fundatie

While Van Gogh is widely known as a master of painting and drawing, he is gaining more recognition for his talent as a writer.  With the recent exhibits at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and at The Royal Academy of Arts in London featuring Van Gogh’s letters and paintings side by side, more people are becoming aware of Van Gogh the writer.  But his writing doesn’t need to be alongside his paintings for it to be impressive or to make sense.  Van Gogh wrote hundreds of letters during his lifetime many of them to his brother Theo.  His letters range in topic from things you might expect like art techniques and theory to discourses on religion, family, ambition, fear and love to name a few.  It is not until you read several of Van Gogh’s letters from different times over the course of his life that you begin to appreciate the beauty of his writing and his command of language (Van Gogh was fluent in French as well as Dutch)  but also his philosophies and outlook on life.  With Valentine’s Day just past, it seemed fitting to share some of his thoughts on love.  This excerpt is from a letter he wrote to his brother Theo in March of 1883:

“It may well seem to you that the sun is shining more brightly and that everything has taken on a new charm. That, at any rate, is the inevitable consequence of true love, I believe, and it is a wonderful thing. And I also believe that those who hold that no one thinks clearly when in love are wrong, for it is at just that time that one thinks very clearly indeed and is more energetic than one was before. And love is something eternal, it may change in aspect but not in essence. And there is the same difference between someone who is in love and what he was like before as there is between a lamp that is lit and one that is not. The lamp was there all the time and it was a good lamp, but now it is giving light as well and that is its true function. And one has more peace of mind about many things and so is more likely to do better work.”

View more from Van Gogh’s Letters.

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The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters Exhibition

Letter Source:

Web Exhibits – Letter from Vincent to Theo, March 1883

This year there are a variety of exciting Van Gogh exhibitions all over the globe.   Even if you don’t live near the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, you may still have an opportunity to see Van Gogh’s works up close and in person at a museum near you.  The following are just a sampling of some of the Van Gogh events going on this year:

Van Gogh Day – Sunday February, 21 at the Marbles Kids Museum, Raleigh, North Carolina

Van Gogh: The Flaming Soul – on going until March 28 at the National Museum of History, Taipei, Taiwan. 

Masterpieces from Paris:  Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne & Beyond – on going until April 4 at The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters – on going until April 18 at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.  Enter our Van Gogh contest to win exhibition tickets.

Turner to Cézanne: Masterpieces from the Davies Collection, National Museum Wales- ongoing until April 25 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musee d’Orsay – September 25, 2010 – January 18 2011 at the de Young Museum, San Francisco, California.

For more information about new and upcoming Van Gogh exhibitions, please see the Events on the Van Gogh Gallery Facebook Page.

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The Real Van Gogh: The Artists and His Letters

Planning on being in London this spring?  If so, you should enter The Real Van Gogh: The artist and his letters contest. We are currently running a contest in cooperation with The Royal Academy of Arts in London to win a pair of exhibition tickets for The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters.

This landmark exhibition of the work of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) opened at The Royal Academy of Arts on January 23 and will run until April 18. The focus of the exhibition is the artist’s remarkable correspondence, with over 35 original letters on display in the main galleries of Burlington House, together with around 65 paintings and 30 drawings. The exhibition will offer a unique opportunity to gain an insight into the complex mind of Vincent van Gogh.

For the chance to win a pair of exhibition tickets simply email your name to competitions@royalacademy.org.uk with Van Gogh Gallery in the subject box. Prize drawn on 26 February. Judges’ decision is final.

For more information about the exhibit please see The Royal Academy of Arts.

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The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters Exhibition

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)

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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If you have the opportunity, the best way to experience Van Gogh’s masterpieces is up close and in person. A number of years ago I was lucky enough to have a chance to visit the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Before visiting I had an appreciation for Van Gogh. I knew all the crowd-pleasers like Starry Night, Sunflowers, and Café Terrace on the Place du Forum. I had read Irving Stone’s Lust for Life and became interested in Van Gogh’s life. But, it was not until experiencing the Van Gogh Museum that I could really appreciate the breadth of his work and the story of his life.

The Van Gogh Museum is home to over 200 Van Gogh paintings as well as many of his drawings and letters. This is the largest collection of Van Gogh works anywhere in the world. See works like The Potato Eaters, Almond Blossom, Irises and The Bedroom. Although the museum itself is more modern than other nearby museums like the Rijksmuseum, also located on the Museumplein, you will feel as though you are transported back to Van Gogh’s time as he tells you his story in his words while you peruse letters handwritten by Van Gogh. You will be taken aback when you realize that this multistory building is houses mainly one man’s work, and when you see his use of color and brushstrokes in person it is awe-inspiring.

While the museum is mainly covers Van Gogh, it also hosts works by other artists like Gauguin, Monet, Pissarro, Seurat, and other artists of the 19th century as well as temporary exhibitions of other artist’s work. Opening on the 18th is an exhibit of Belgian artist Alfred Stevens’ work. If you have stories or photos from your trip to the Van Gogh Museum that you would like to add, please share your comments.

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