from the permanent display of the Batliner Collection at Albertina, Vienna

 

for educational purpose only

 

please do not use without permission

Pierre Signac, NMB 2316.

 

Photo: Erik Cornelius/Nationalmuseum

 

From the collections of the Photo Department, Nationalmuseum.

For licensing and high resolution images, contact the Photo Department; fototeket@nationalmuseum.se.

On the coldest day ever, a visit to see the best art ever, Metropolitan Museum, New York, February 2016.

Petit-Andelys la berge by Paul Signac

The Postcard

 

A postally unused carte postale bearing no publisher's name, although the photography was by Douzon Opticien of Arles-sur-Rhône.

 

Arles

 

Arles is a city in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, in the former province of Provence.

 

A large part of the Camargue is located on the territory of the commune. The city has a long history, and was of considerable importance in the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis.

 

The Roman and Romanesque Monuments of Arles were listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1981.

 

The Dutch post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh lived in Arles from 1888 to 1889, and produced over 300 paintings and drawings during his time there. He in fact painted Les Alyscamps (sic) in 1888.

 

Vincent van Gogh

 

Vincent Willem van Gogh, who was born in Zundert, Netherlands on the 30th. March 1853, was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art.

 

In just over a decade he created approximately 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life.

 

They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold, symbolic colours, and dramatic, impulsive and highly expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art.

 

Only one of his paintings was known by name to have been sold during his lifetime. Van Gogh became famous after his suicide at the age of 37, which followed years of poverty and mental illness.

 

Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet and thoughtful, but showed signs of mental instability.

 

As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often travelling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion, and spent time as a missionary in southern Belgium.

 

Later he drifted in ill-health and solitude. He was keenly aware of modernist trends in art and, while back with his parents, took up painting in 1881. His younger brother, Theo, supported him financially, and the two of them kept up a long correspondence by letter.

 

Van Gogh's early works consisted of mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant labourers. In 1886, he moved to Paris, where he met members of the artistic avant-garde, including Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were seeking new paths beyond Impressionism.

 

Frustrated in Paris and inspired by a growing spirit of artistic change and collaboration, Van Gogh moved to Arles in the south of France in February 1888 with the goal of establishing an artistic retreat and commune.

 

Once there, Van Gogh's art changed. His paintings grew brighter, and he turned his attention to the natural world, depicting local olive groves, wheat fields and sunflowers. Van Gogh invited Gauguin to join him in Arles and eagerly anticipated Gauguin's arrival in the fall of 1888.

 

Van Gogh suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions. Though he worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly, and drank heavily.

 

His friendship with Gauguin ended after a confrontation with a razor when, in a rage, he severed part of his own left ear. He spent time in psychiatric hospitals, including a period at Saint-Rémy.

 

After he discharged himself and moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, he came under the care of the homeopathic doctor Paul Gachet. His depression persisted, and on the 27th. July 1890, Van Gogh is believed to have shot himself in the chest with a revolver, dying at the age of 37 from his injuries two days later.

 

Van Gogh's art gained critical recognition after his death and his life story captured public imagination as an emblem of misunderstood genius, due in large part to the efforts of his widowed sister-in-law Johanna van Gogh-Bonger.

 

His bold use of color, expressive line and thick application of paint inspired avant garde artistic groups like the Fauves and German Expressionists in the early 20th. century.

 

Van Gogh's work gained widespread critical and commercial success in the following decades, and he has become a lasting icon of the romantic ideal of the tortured artist.

 

Today, Van Gogh's works are among the world's most expensive paintings to have ever sold, and his legacy is honoured by a museum in his name, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which holds the world's largest collection of his paintings and drawings.

 

Notable works of Van Gogh include:

 

-- Sunflowers (1887)

-- Bedroom in Arles (1888)

-- The Starry Night (1889)

-- Wheatfield with Crows (1890)

-- Sorrowing Old Man (1890)

 

Vincent van Gogh - The Early Years

 

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on the 30th. March 1853 in Groot-Zundert, in the predominantly Catholic province of North Brabant in the Netherlands.

 

He was the oldest surviving child of Theodorus van Gogh (1822–1885), a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, and his wife, Anna Cornelia Carbentus (1819–1907).

 

Van Gogh was given the name of his grandfather and of a brother stillborn exactly a year before his birth. Vincent was a common name in the Van Gogh family.

 

Van Gogh's mother came from a prosperous family in The Hague. The two met when Anna's younger sister, Cornelia, married Theodorus' older brother.

 

Van Gogh's parents married in May 1851, and moved to Zundert. His brother Theo was born on the 1st. May 1857. There was another brother, Cor, and three sisters: Elisabeth, Anna, and Willemina.

 

In later life, Van Gogh remained in touch only with Willemina and Theo.

 

Van Gogh's mother was a rigid and religious woman who emphasized the importance of family to the point of claustrophobia for those around her.

 

Theodorus' salary as a minister was modest, but the Church also supplied the family with a house, a maid, two cooks, a gardener, a carriage and horse; Vincent's mother Anna instilled in the children a duty to uphold the family's high social position.

 

Van Gogh was a serious and thoughtful child. He was taught at home by his mother and a governess, and in 1860, was sent to the village school. In 1864, he was placed in a boarding school at Zevenbergen where he felt abandoned, and he campaigned to come home.

 

Instead, in 1866, his parents sent him to the middle school in Tilburg, where he was also deeply unhappy.

 

Vincent's interest in art began at a young age. He was encouraged to draw as a child by his mother, and his early drawings are expressive, but do not approach the intensity of his later work.

 

Constant Cornelis Huijsmans, who had been a successful artist in Paris, taught the students at Tilburg. His philosophy was to reject technique in favour of capturing the impressions of things, particularly nature or common objects.

 

Van Gogh's profound unhappiness seems to have overshadowed the lessons, which had little effect. In March 1868, he abruptly returned home. He later wrote that his youth was "austere and cold, and sterile".

 

In July 1869, Van Gogh's uncle Cent obtained a position for him at the art dealers Goupil & Cie in The Hague. After completing his training in 1873, he was transferred to Goupil's London branch on Southampton Street, and took lodgings at 87 Hackford Road, Stockwell.

 

This was a happy time for Van Gogh; he was successful at work and, at 20, was earning more than his father. Theo's wife, Jo Van Gogh-Bonger, later remarked that this was the best year of Vincent's life.

 

Vincent became infatuated with his landlady's daughter, Eugénie Loyer, but she rejected him after he confessed his feelings; she was secretly engaged to a former lodger.

 

He grew more isolated and religiously fervent. His father and uncle arranged a transfer to Paris in 1875, where he became resentful of issues such as the degree to which the art dealers commodified art, and he was dismissed a year later.

 

In April 1876, Vincent returned to England to take unpaid work as a supply teacher in a small boarding school in Ramsgate. When the proprietor moved to Isleworth in Middlesex, Van Gogh went with him. The arrangement was not successful; he left to become a Methodist minister's assistant.

 

His parents had meanwhile moved to Etten; in 1876 he returned home at Christmas for six months and took work at a bookshop in Dordrecht. He was unhappy in the position, and spent his time doodling or translating passages from the Bible into English, French, and German.

 

Vincent immersed himself in Christianity, and became increasingly pious and monastic. According to his flatmate of the time, Paulus van Görlitz, Van Gogh ate frugally, avoiding meat.

 

To support his religious conviction and his desire to become a pastor, in 1877, the family sent him to live with his uncle Johannes Stricker, a respected theologian, in Amsterdam.

 

Van Gogh prepared for the University of Amsterdam theology entrance examination; he failed the exam and left his uncle's house in July 1878. He undertook, but also failed, a three-month course at a Protestant missionary school in Laken, near Brussels.

 

In January 1879, he took up a post as a missionary at Petit-Wasmes in the working class, coal-mining district of Borinage in Belgium. To show support for his impoverished congregation, he gave up his comfortable lodgings at a bakery to a homeless person and moved to a small hut, where he slept on straw.

 

Vincent's humble living conditions did not endear him to the church authorities, who dismissed him for "undermining the dignity of the priesthood".

 

He then walked the 75 kilometres (47 mi) to Brussels, returned briefly to Cuesmes in the Borinage, but he gave in to pressure from his parents to return home to Etten. He stayed there until around March 1880, which caused concern and frustration for his parents. His father was especially frustrated, and advised that his son be committed to the lunatic asylum in Geel.

 

Van Gogh returned to Cuesmes in August 1880, where he lodged with a miner until October. He became interested in the people and scenes around him, and he recorded them in drawings after Theo's suggestion that he take up art in earnest.

 

Vincent traveled to Brussels later in the year, to follow Theo's recommendation that he study with the Dutch artist Willem Roelofs, who persuaded him – in spite of his dislike of formal schools of art – to attend the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. He registered at the Académie in November 1880, where he studied anatomy and the standard rules of modelling and perspective.

 

Etten, Drenthe and The Hague

 

Van Gogh returned to Etten in April 1881 for an extended stay with his parents. He continued to draw, often using his neighbours as subjects. In August 1881, his recently widowed cousin, Cornelia "Kee" Vos-Stricker, daughter of his mother's older sister Willemina and Johannes Stricker, arrived for a visit.

 

Vincent was thrilled, and took long walks with her. Kee was seven years older than he was, and had an eight-year-old son. Van Gogh surprised everyone by declaring his love to her and proposing marriage. She refused with the words "No, nay, never."

 

After Kee returned to Amsterdam, Van Gogh went to The Hague to try to sell paintings and to meet with his second cousin, Anton Mauve. Mauve was the successful artist Van Gogh longed to be.

 

Mauve invited him to return in a few months, and suggested he spend the intervening time working in charcoal and pastels; Van Gogh returned to Etten and followed this advice.

 

Late in November 1881, Van Gogh wrote a letter to Johannes Stricker, one which he described to Theo as an attack. Within days he left for Amsterdam.

 

Kee would not meet him, and her parents wrote that "his persistence is disgusting". In despair, he held his left hand in the flame of a lamp, with the words:

 

"Let me see her for as long as I

can keep my hand in the flame."

 

He did not recall the event well, but later assumed that his uncle had blown out the flame. Kee's father made it clear that her refusal should be heeded, and that the two would not marry, largely because of Van Gogh's inability to support himself.

 

Mauve took Van Gogh on as a student and introduced him to watercolour, which he worked on for the next month before returning home for Christmas. However Vincent quarrelled with his father, refusing to attend church, and left for The Hague.

 

In January 1882, Mauve introduced Vincent to painting in oil, and lent him money to set up a studio. However within a month Van Gogh and Mauve had fallen out, possibly over the viability of drawing from plaster casts.

 

Van Gogh could afford to hire only people from the street as models, a practice of which Mauve seems to have disapproved.

 

In June 1882 Van Gogh suffered a bout of gonorrhoea, and spent three weeks in hospital. Soon after, he first painted in oils, bought with money borrowed from Theo. He liked the medium, and he spread the paint liberally, scraping from the canvas and working back with the brush. He wrote that he was surprised at how good the results were.

 

Clasina Maria "Sien" Hoornik

 

By March 1882, Mauve had gone cold towards Van Gogh, and had stopped replying to his letters. He had learned of Van Gogh's new domestic arrangement with an alcoholic prostitute, Clasina Maria "Sien" Hoornik (1850–1904), and her young daughter.

 

Van Gogh had met Sien towards the end of January 1882, when she had a five-year-old daughter, and was pregnant. She had previously borne two children who had died, but Van Gogh was unaware of this.

 

On the 2nd. July, she gave birth to a baby boy, Willem. When Van Gogh's father discovered the details of their relationship, he put pressure on his son to abandon Sien and her two children. Vincent at first defied him, and considered moving the family out of the city, but in late 1883, he left Sien and the children.

 

In September 1883, Van Gogh moved to Drenthe in the northern Netherlands. In December, driven by loneliness, he went to live with his parents, then in Nuenen, North Brabant.

 

Poverty may have pushed Sien back into prostitution; the home became less happy and Van Gogh may have felt family life was irreconcilable with his artistic development. Sien gave her daughter to her mother, and baby Willem to her brother.

 

Willem remembered visiting Rotterdam when he was about 12, when an uncle tried to persuade Sien to marry to legitimise the child. Willem believed that Van Gogh was his father, but the timing of his birth makes this unlikely.

 

Sien drowned herself in the River Scheldt in 1904.

 

Vincent van Gogh The Emerging Artist

 

In Nuenen, Van Gogh focused on painting and drawing. Working outside and very quickly, he completed sketches and paintings of weavers and their cottages.

 

Van Gogh also completed The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen, which was stolen from the Singer Laren in March 2020.

 

From August 1884, Margot Begemann, a neighbour's daughter ten years his senior, joined him on his forays; she fell in love and he reciprocated, though less enthusiastically. They wanted to marry, but neither side of their families were in favour.

 

Margot was distraught and took an overdose of strychnine, but survived after Van Gogh rushed her to a nearby hospital. On the 26th. March 1885, Vincent's father died of a heart attack.

 

Van Gogh painted several groups of still lifes in 1885. During his two-year stay in Nuenen, he completed numerous drawings and watercolours, and nearly 200 oil paintings. His palette consisted mainly of sombre earth tones, particularly dark brown, and showed no sign of the vivid colours that distinguished his later work.

 

There was interest from a dealer in Paris early in 1885. Theo asked Vincent if he had paintings ready to exhibit. In May, Van Gogh responded with his first major work, The Potato Eaters, and a series of "peasant character studies" which were the culmination of several years of work.

 

When he complained that Theo was not making enough effort to sell his paintings in Paris, his brother responded that they were too dark, and not in keeping with the bright style of Impressionism.

 

In August 1885 Vincent's work was publicly exhibited for the first time, in the shop windows of the dealer Leurs in The Hague. One of his young peasant sitters became pregnant in September 1885; Van Gogh was accused of forcing himself upon her, and the village priest forbade parishioners to model for him.

 

Vincent moved to Antwerp in November 1885 and rented a room above a paint dealer's shop in the Rue des Images. He lived in poverty and ate poorly, preferring to spend the money that Theo had sent on painting materials and models. Bread, coffee and tobacco became his staple diet.

 

In February 1886, Vincent wrote to Theo that he could only remember eating six hot meals since the previous May. His teeth became loose and painful.

 

In Antwerp he applied himself to the study of colour theory and spent time in museums—particularly studying the work of Peter Paul Rubens—and broadened his palette to include carmine, cobalt blue and emerald green.

 

Van Gogh bought Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts in the docklands, later incorporating elements of their style into the background of some of his paintings. By 1886 he was drinking heavily again, and was hospitalised when he was possibly also treated for syphilis.

 

Despite his antipathy towards academic teaching, he took the higher-level admission exams at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and, in January 1886, matriculated in painting and drawing. He became ill and run down by overwork, poor diet and excessive smoking.

 

Vincent started to attend drawing classes with plaster models at the Antwerp Academy on the 18th. January 1886. However Vincent quickly got into trouble with Charles Verlat, the director of the academy and teacher of a painting class, because of his unconventional painting style.

 

Van Gogh had also clashed with the instructor of the drawing class Franz Vinck. Van Gogh finally started to attend the drawing classes after antique plaster models had been given by Eugène Siberdt.

 

However soon Siberdt and Van Gogh came into conflict when the latter did not comply with Siberdt's requirement that drawings express the contour and concentrate on the line.

 

When Van Gogh was required to draw the Venus de Milo during a drawing class, he produced the limbless, naked torso of a Flemish peasant woman. Siberdt regarded this as defiance against his artistic guidance, and made corrections to Van Gogh's drawing with his crayon so vigorously that he tore the paper. Van Gogh then flew into a violent rage and shouted at Siberdt:

 

'You clearly do not know what a young

woman is like, God damn it! A woman

must have hips, buttocks, a pelvis in

which she can carry a baby!'

 

According to some accounts, this was the last time Van Gogh attended classes at the academy, and he left later for Paris.

 

On the 31st. March 1886, which was about a month after the confrontation with Siberdt, the teachers of the academy decided that 17 students, including Van Gogh, had to repeat a year. The story that Van Gogh was expelled from the academy by Siberdt is therefore unfounded.

 

Vincent van Gogh in Paris (1886–1888)

 

Van Gogh moved to Paris in March 1886 where he shared Theo's Rue Laval apartment in Montmartre and studied at Fernand Cormon's studio.

 

In June 1886 the brothers took a larger flat at 54 Rue Lepic. In Paris, Vincent painted portraits of friends and acquaintances, still life paintings, views of Le Moulin de la Galette, scenes in Montmartre, Asnières and along the Seine.

 

In 1885 in Antwerp he had become interested in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, and had used them to decorate the walls of his studio; while in Paris he collected hundreds of them.

 

He tried his hand at Japonaiserie, tracing a figure from a reproduction on the cover of the magazine Paris Illustre, The Courtesan or Oiran (1887), after Keisai Eisen, which he then graphically enlarged in a painting.

 

After seeing the portrait of Adolphe Monticelli at the Galerie Delareybarette, Van Gogh adopted a brighter palette and a bolder attack, particularly in paintings such as his Seascape at Saintes-Maries (1888).

 

Two years later, Vincent and Theo paid for the publication of a book on Monticelli paintings, and Vincent bought some of Monticelli's works to add to his collection.

 

Van Gogh had learned about Fernand Cormon's atelier from Theo. He worked at the studio in April and May 1886, where he frequented the circle of the Australian artist John Russell, who painted his portrait in 1886.

 

Van Gogh also met fellow students Émile Bernard, Louis Anquetin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec – who painted a portrait of him in pastel. They met at Julien "Père" Tanguy's paint shop, which was, at that time, the only place where Paul Cézanne's paintings were displayed.

 

In 1886, two large exhibitions were staged there, showing Pointillism and Neo-impressionism for the first time, and bringing attention to Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. Theo kept a stock of Impressionist paintings in his gallery on boulevard Montmartre, but Van Gogh was slow to acknowledge the new developments in art.

 

Conflicts arose between the brothers. At the end of 1886 Theo found living with Vincent to be "almost unbearable". However by early 1887, they were again at peace, and Vincent had moved to Asnières, a north-western suburb of Paris, where he got to know Signac.

 

He adopted elements of Pointillism, a technique in which a multitude of small coloured dots are applied to the canvas so that when seen from a distance they create an optical blend of hues. The style stresses the ability of complementary colours – including blue and orange – to form vibrant contrasts.

 

While in Asnières Van Gogh painted parks, restaurants and the Seine, including Bridges across the Seine at Asnières. In November 1887, Theo and Vincent befriended Paul Gauguin who had just arrived in Paris.

 

Towards the end of the year, Vincent arranged an exhibition alongside Bernard, Anquetin, and probably Toulouse-Lautrec, at the Grand-Bouillon Restaurant du Chalet, 43 Avenue de Clichy, Montmartre.

 

In a contemporary account, Bernard wrote that the exhibition was ahead of anything else in Paris. There, Bernard and Anquetin sold their first paintings, and Van Gogh exchanged work with Gauguin.

 

Discussions on art, artists, and their social situations started during this exhibition, continued and expanded to include visitors to the show, like Camille Pissarro and his son Lucien, Signac and Seurat.

 

In February 1888, feeling worn out from life in Paris, Van Gogh left, having painted more than 200 paintings during his two years there. Hours before his departure, accompanied by Theo, he paid his first and only visit to Seurat in his studio.

 

Vincent van Gogh's Artistic Breakthrough

 

Ill from drink and suffering from smoker's cough, in February 1888 Van Gogh sought refuge in Arles. He seems to have moved with thoughts of founding an art colony. The Danish artist Christian Mourier-Petersen became his companion for two months, and, at first, Arles appeared exotic. In a letter, he described it as a foreign country:

 

"The Zouaves, the brothels, the adorable

little Arlésienne going to her First

Communion, the priest in his surplice, who

looks like a dangerous rhinoceros, the

people drinking absinthe, all seem to me

creatures from another world."

 

The time in Arles became one of Van Gogh's more prolific periods: he completed 200 paintings and more than 100 drawings and watercolours. Vincent was enchanted by the local countryside and light; his works from this period are rich in yellow, ultramarine and mauve.

 

They include harvests, wheat fields and general rural landmarks from the area, including The Old Mill (1888), one of seven canvases sent to Pont-Aven on 4 October 1888 in an exchange of works with Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, Charles Laval and others.

 

The portrayals of Arles are influenced by Vincent's Dutch upbringing; the patchworks of fields and avenues are flat and lacking perspective, but excel in their use of colour.

 

In March 1888, he painted landscapes using a gridded "perspective frame"; three of the works were shown at the annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants. In April, he was visited by the American artist Dodge MacKnight, who was living nearby at Fontvieille.

 

On the 1st. May 1888, for 15 francs per month, he signed a lease for the eastern wing of the Yellow House at 2, Place Lamartine. The rooms were unfurnished, and had been uninhabited for months.

 

On the 7th. May, Van Gogh moved from the Hôtel Carrel to the Café de la Gare, having befriended the proprietors, Joseph and Marie Ginoux. The Yellow House had to be furnished before he could fully move in, but he was able to use it as a studio.

 

He wanted a gallery to display his work, and started a series of paintings that eventually included Van Gogh's Chair (1888), Bedroom in Arles (1888), The Night Café (1888), Café Terrace at Night (September 1888), Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888), and Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers (1888), all intended for the decoration of the Yellow House.

 

Van Gogh wrote that:

 

"With The Night Café I tried to express

the idea that the café is a place where

one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit

a crime".

 

When he visited Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in June, he gave lessons to a Zouave second lieutenant – Paul-Eugène Milliet – and painted the village and boats on the sea. MacKnight introduced Van Gogh to Eugène Boch, a Belgian painter who sometimes stayed in Fontvieille, and the two exchanged visits in July.

 

Gauguin's visit (1888)

 

When Gauguin agreed to visit Arles in 1888, Van Gogh hoped for friendship, and to realize his idea of an artists' collective. Van Gogh prepared for Gauguin's arrival by painting four versions of Sunflowers in one week.

 

Vincent wrote in a letter to Theo:

 

"In the hope of living in a studio of

our own with Gauguin I'd like to do

a decoration for the studio.

Nothing but large Sunflowers."

 

When Boch visited again, Van Gogh painted a portrait of him, as well as the study The Poet Against a Starry Sky.

 

In preparation for Gauguin's visit, Van Gogh bought two beds on advice from the station's postal supervisor Joseph Roulin, whose portrait he painted.

 

On the 17th. September 1888, he spent his first night in the still sparsely furnished Yellow House. When Gauguin consented to work and live in Arles with him, Van Gogh started to work on the Décoration for the Yellow House, probably the most ambitious effort he ever undertook. He also completed two chair paintings: Van Gogh's Chair and Gauguin's Chair.

 

After much pleading from Van Gogh, Gauguin arrived in Arles on the 23rd. October 1888 and, in November, the two painted together. Gauguin depicted Van Gogh in his The Painter of Sunflowers; Van Gogh painted pictures from memory, following Gauguin's suggestion.

 

Among these "imaginative" paintings is Memory of the Garden at Etten. Their first joint outdoor venture was at the Alyscamps, when they produced the companion pieces Les Alyscamps. The single painting Gauguin completed during his visit was his portrait of Van Gogh.

 

Van Gogh and Gauguin visited Montpellier in December 1888, where they saw works by Courbet and Delacroix in the Musée Fabre. However their relationship began to deteriorate; Van Gogh admired Gauguin and wanted to be treated as his equal, but Gauguin was arrogant and domineering, which frustrated Van Gogh.

 

They often quarrelled; Van Gogh increasingly feared that Gauguin was going to desert him, and the situation, which Van Gogh described as one of "excessive tension", rapidly headed towards crisis point.

 

Van Gogh's Ear

 

The exact sequence that led to the mutilation of Van Gogh's ear is not known. Gauguin said, fifteen years later, that the night followed several instances of physically threatening behaviour.

 

Their relationship was complex, and Theo may have owed money to Gauguin, who suspected that the brothers were exploiting him financially. It seems likely that Vincent realised that Gauguin was planning to leave.

 

The following days saw heavy rain, leading to the two men being shut in the Yellow House. Gauguin recalled that Van Gogh followed him after he left for a walk and "rushed towards me, an open razor in his hand."

 

This account is uncorroborated; Gauguin was almost certainly absent from the Yellow House that night, most likely staying in a hotel.

 

After an altercation on the evening of the 23rd. December 1888, Van Gogh returned to his room where he seemingly heard voices and either wholly or in part severed his left ear with a razor, causing severe bleeding.

 

He bandaged the wound, wrapped the ear in paper and delivered the package to a woman at a brothel that Van Gogh and Gauguin both frequented. Van Gogh was found unconscious the next morning by a policeman and taken to hospital, where he was treated by Félix Rey, a young doctor still in training.

 

The ear was brought to the hospital, but Rey did not attempt to re-attach it as too much time had passed. Van Gogh researcher and art historian Bernadette Murphy discovered the true identity of the woman named Gabrielle, who died in Arles at the age of 80 in 1952, and whose descendants still live just outside Arles.

 

Gabrielle, known in her youth as "Gaby," was a 17-year-old cleaning girl at the brothel and other local establishments at the time Van Gogh presented her with his ear.

 

Van Gogh had no recollection of the event, suggesting that he may have suffered an acute mental breakdown. The hospital diagnosis was "acute mania with generalised delirium", and within a few days, the local police ordered that Vincent be placed in hospital care.

 

Gauguin immediately notified Theo, who, on the 24th. December, had proposed marriage to his old friend Andries Bonger's sister Johanna. That evening, Theo rushed to the station to board a night train to Arles. He arrived on Christmas Day and comforted Vincent, who seemed to be semi-lucid. That evening, he left Arles for the return trip to Paris.

 

During the first days of his treatment, Van Gogh repeatedly and unsuccessfully asked for Gauguin, who asked a policeman attending the case to:

 

"Be kind enough, Monsieur, to awaken

this man with great care, and if he asks

for me tell him I have left for Paris; the

sight of me might prove fatal for him."

 

Gauguin fled Arles, never to see Van Gogh again. However they continued to correspond, and in 1890, Gauguin proposed that they form a studio in Antwerp. Meanwhile, other visitors to the hospital included Marie Ginoux and Roulin.

 

Despite a pessimistic diagnosis, Van Gogh recovered and returned to the Yellow House on the 7th. January 1889. He spent the following month between hospital and home, suffering from hallucinations and delusions of poisoning.

 

In March, the police closed his house after a petition by 30 townspeople (including the Ginoux family) who described him as le fou roux "the redheaded madman"; Van Gogh returned to hospital.

 

Paul Signac visited him twice in March; in April, Van Gogh moved into rooms owned by Dr. Rey after floods damaged paintings in his own home. Two months later, he left Arles and voluntarily entered an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Around this time, he wrote:

 

"Sometimes moods of indescribable

anguish, sometimes moments when

the veil of time and fatality of

circumstances seemed to be torn

apart for an instant."

 

Van Gogh gave his 1889 Portrait of Doctor Félix Rey to Dr Rey. However the physician was not fond of the painting, and used it to repair a chicken coop, then gave it away. In 2016, the portrait was housed at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, and estimated to be worth over $50 million.

 

Vincent van Gogh at Saint-Rémy (May 1889 – May 1890)

 

Van Gogh entered the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum on the 8th. May 1889, accompanied by his caregiver, Frédéric Salles, a Protestant clergyman. Saint-Paul was a former monastery in Saint-Rémy, located less than 30 kilometres (19 mi) from Arles, and was run by a former naval doctor, Théophile Peyron.

 

Van Gogh had two cells with barred windows, one of which he used as a studio. The clinic and its garden became the main subjects of his paintings. He made several studies of the hospital's interiors, such as Vestibule of the Asylum and Saint-Rémy (September 1889), and its gardens, such as Lilacs (May 1889).

 

Some of his works from this time are characterised by swirls, such as The Starry Night. He was allowed short supervised walks, during which time he painted cypresses and olive trees, including Valley with Ploughman Seen from Above, Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background 1889, Cypresses 1889, Cornfield with Cypresses (1889), and Country road in Provence by Night (1890).

 

In September 1889, he produced two further versions of Bedroom in Arles and The Gardener.

 

Limited access to life outside the clinic resulted in a shortage of subject matter. Van Gogh instead worked on interpretations of other artists' paintings, such as Millet's The Sower and Noonday Rest, and variations on his own earlier work.

 

Van Gogh was an admirer of the Realism of Jules Breton, Gustave Courbet and Millet, and he compared his copies to a musician's interpretation of Beethoven.

 

His Prisoners' Round (after Gustave Doré) (1890) was painted after an engraving by Gustave Doré (1832–1883). Tralbaut suggests that the face of the prisoner in the centre of the painting looking towards the viewer is Van Gogh himself.

 

Between February and April 1890, Van Gogh suffered a severe relapse. Depressed and unable to bring himself to write, he was still able to paint and draw a little during this time, and he later wrote to Theo that he had made a few small canvases "from memory ... reminisces of the North".

 

Among these was Two Peasant Women Digging in a Snow-Covered Field at Sunset. Hulsker believes that this small group of paintings formed the nucleus of many drawings and study sheets depicting landscapes and figures that Van Gogh worked on during this time.

 

He comments that this short period was the only time that Van Gogh's illness had a significant effect on his work. Van Gogh asked his mother and his brother to send him drawings and rough work he had done in the early 1880's so that he could work on new paintings from his old sketches.

 

Belonging to this period is Sorrowing Old Man ("At Eternity's Gate"), a colour study Hulsker describes as:

 

"Another unmistakable

remembrance of times

long past".

 

Vincent's late paintings show an artist at the height of his abilities, according to the art critic Robert Hughes: "longing for conciseness and grace".

 

After the birth of his nephew, Van Gogh wrote:

 

"I started right away to make a picture

for him, to hang in their bedroom,

branches of white almond blossom

against a blue sky."

 

1890 Exhibitions and Recognition

 

Albert Aurier praised Vincent's work in the Mercure de France in January 1890, and described him as "a genius". In February, Van Gogh painted five versions of L'Arlésienne (Madame Ginoux), based on a charcoal sketch Gauguin had produced when she sat for both artists in November 1888.

 

Also in February, Van Gogh was invited by Les XX, a society of avant-garde painters in Brussels, to participate in their annual exhibition. At the opening dinner, a Les XX member, Henry de Groux, insulted Van Gogh's work.

 

Toulouse-Lautrec demanded satisfaction, and Signac declared he would continue to fight for Van Gogh's honour if Lautrec surrendered. De Groux apologised for the slight and left the group.

 

From the 20th. March to the 27th. April 1890, Van Gogh was included in the sixth exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in Paris. Van Gogh exhibited ten paintings. Claude Monet said that his work was the best in the show.

 

Vincent van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise (May–July 1890)

 

In May 1890, Van Gogh left the clinic in Saint-Rémy to move nearer to both Dr. Paul Gachet in the Paris suburb of Auvers-sur-Oise, and to his brother Theo.

 

Gachet was an amateur painter, and had treated several other artists – Camille Pissarro had recommended him. Van Gogh's first impression was that Gachet was not well, and was:

 

"Iller than I am, it seemed to

me, or let's say just as much."

 

The painter Charles Daubigny moved to Auvers in 1861, and in turn drew other artists there, including Camille Corot and Honoré Daumier. In July 1890, Van Gogh completed two paintings of Daubigny's Garden, one of which is likely his final work.

 

During his last weeks at Saint-Rémy, Vincent's thoughts returned to "memories of the North", and several of the approximately 70 oils, painted during as many days in Auvers-sur-Oise, are reminiscent of northern scenes.

 

In June 1890, he painted several portraits of his doctor, including Portrait of Dr. Gachet, and his only etching. In each the emphasis is on Gachet's melancholic disposition. There are other paintings which are probably unfinished, including Thatched Cottages by a Hill.

 

In July, Van Gogh wrote that:

 

"I have become absorbed in the

immense plain against the hills,

boundless as the sea, delicate

yellow".

 

He had first become captivated by the fields in May, when the wheat was young and green. In July, Vincent described to Theo "vast fields of wheat under turbulent skies".

 

He wrote that:

 

"They represent my sadness and extreme

loneliness. The canvases will tell you what

I cannot say in words, that is, how healthy

and invigorating I find the countryside".

 

Wheat field with Crows, although not his last oil work, is from July 1890, and Hulsker discusses it as being associated with "melancholy and extreme loneliness".

 

The Death of Vincent van Gogh

 

On the 27th. July 1890, aged 37, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a revolver. The shooting may have taken place in the wheat field in which he had been painting, or in a local barn.

 

The bullet was deflected by a rib and passed through his chest without doing apparent damage to internal organs – possibly stopped by his spine. He was able to walk back to the Auberge Ravoux, where he was attended to by two doctors.

 

One of them, Dr. Gachet, served as a war surgeon in 1870, and had extensive knowledge of gunshot wounds. Vincent was possibly attended to during the night by Dr Gachet's son Paul Louis Gachet and the innkeeper, Arthur Ravoux.

 

The following morning, Theo rushed to his brother's side, finding him in good spirits. But within hours Vincent's health began to fail, suffering from an infection resulting from the wound. He died in the early hours of the 29th. July 1890. According to Theo, Vincent's last words were:

 

"The sadness will last forever".

 

Van Gogh was buried on the 30th. July, in the municipal cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise. The funeral was attended by Theo van Gogh, Andries Bonger, Charles Laval, Lucien Pissarro, Émile Bernard, Julien Tanguy and Paul Gachet, among twenty family members, friends and locals.

 

Theo suffered from syphilis, and his health began to decline further after his brother's death. Weak and unable to come to terms with Vincent's absence, he died on the 25th. January 1891 at Den Dolder and was buried in Utrecht.

 

In 1914, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger had Theo's body exhumed and moved from Utrecht to be re-buried alongside Vincent's at Auvers-sur-Oise.

 

Vincent van Gogh's Illness

 

There have been numerous debates as to the nature of Van Gogh's illness and its effect on his work, and many retrospective diagnoses have been proposed.

 

The consensus is that Van Gogh had an episodic condition with periods of normal functioning. Perry was the first to suggest bipolar disorder in 1947, and this has been supported by the psychiatrists Hemphill and Blumer.

 

Biochemist Wilfred Arnold has countered that the symptoms are more consistent with acute intermittent porphyria, noting that the popular link between bipolar disorder and creativity might be spurious.

 

Temporal lobe epilepsy with bouts of depression has also been suggested. Whatever the diagnosis, Vincent's condition was likely worsened by malnutrition, overwork, insomnia and alcohol.

 

Vincent van Gogh's Style and Works

 

Van Gogh drew and painted with watercolours while at school, but only a few examples survive, and the authorship of some of them has been challenged. When he took up art as an adult, he began at an elementary level.

 

In early 1882, his uncle, Cornelis Marinus, owner of a well-known gallery of contemporary art in Amsterdam, asked for drawings of The Hague. However Van Gogh's work did not live up to expectations.

 

Marinus offered a second commission, specifying the subject matter in detail, but was again disappointed with the result. Van Gogh persevered; he experimented with lighting in his studio using variable shutters and different drawing materials.

 

For more than a year he worked on single figures – highly elaborate studies in black and white, which at the time gained him only criticism. Later, they were recognised as early masterpieces.

 

In August 1882, Theo gave Vincent money to buy materials for working en plein air. Vincent wrote that he could now "go on painting with new vigour".

 

From early 1883, he worked on multi-figure compositions. He had some of them photographed, but when his brother remarked that they lacked liveliness and freshness, he destroyed them and turned to oil painting.

 

Van Gogh turned to well-known Hague School artists like Weissenbruch and Blommers, and he received technical advice from them as well as from painters like De Bock and Van der Weele, both of the Hague School's second generation.

 

Vincent moved to Nuenen after a short period of time and began work on several large paintings, but destroyed most of them. The Potato Eaters and its companion pieces are the only ones to have survived.

 

Following a visit to the Rijksmuseum Van Gogh wrote of his admiration for the quick, economical brushwork of the Dutch Masters, especially Rembrandt and Frans Hals.

 

Vincent was aware that many of his faults were due to lack of experience and technical expertise, so in November 1885 he travelled to Antwerp and later Paris to develop his skills.

 

Theo criticised The Potato Eaters for its dark palette, which he thought unsuitable for a modern style. Accordingly during Van Gogh's stay in Paris between 1886 and 1887, he tried to master a new, lighter palette.

 

His Portrait of Père Tanguy (1887) shows his success with the brighter palette, and is evidence of an evolving personal style.

 

Charles Blanc's treatise on colour interested Vincent greatly, and led him to work with complementary colours. Van Gogh came to believe that the effect of colour went beyond the descriptive; he said that:

 

"Colour expresses something in itself".

 

According to Hughes, Van Gogh perceived colour as having a "psychological and moral weight", as exemplified in the garish reds and greens of The Night Café, a work he wanted to "express the terrible passions of humanity".

 

Yellow meant the most to him, because it symbolised emotional truth. He used yellow as a symbol for sunlight, life, and God.

 

Van Gogh strove to be a painter of rural life and nature; during his first summer in Arles he used his new palette to paint landscapes and traditional rural life. His belief that a power existed behind the natural led him to try to capture a sense of that power, or the essence of nature in his art, sometimes through the use of symbols.

 

Vincent's renditions of the sower, at first copied from Jean-François Millet, reflect the influence of Thomas Carlyle and Friedrich Nietzsche's thoughts on the heroism of physical labour, as well as Van Gogh's religious beliefs: the sower as Christ sowing life beneath the hot sun.

 

These were themes and motifs that he returned to often in order to rework and develop. His paintings of flowers are filled with symbolism, but rather than use traditional Christian iconography he made up his own, where life is lived under the sun and work is an allegory of life.

 

In Arles, having gained confidence after painting spring blossoms and learning to capture bright sunlight, he was ready to paint The Sower.

 

Van Gogh stayed within what he called the "guise of reality," and was critical of overly stylised works. He wrote afterwards that the abstraction of Starry Night had gone too far and that reality had "receded too far in the background".

 

Hughes describes it as a moment of extreme visionary ecstasy:

 

"The stars are in a great whirl, reminiscent

of Hokusai's Great Wave, the movement in

the heaven above is reflected by the

movement of the cypress on the earth below,

and the painter's vision is translated into a

thick, emphatic plasma of paint".

 

Between 1885 and his death in 1890, Van Gogh appears to have been building an oeuvre, a collection that reflected his personal vision and which could be commercially successful.

 

He was influenced by Blanc's definition of style, that a true painting required optimal use of colour, perspective and brushstrokes.

 

Van Gogh applied the word "purposeful" to paintings he thought he had mastered, as opposed to those he thought of as studies.

 

He painted many series of studies, most of which were still lifes, many executed as colour experiments or as gifts to friends. The work in Arles contributed considerably to his oeuvre: those he thought the most important from that time were The Sower, Night Cafe, Memory of the Garden in Etten and Starry Night.

 

With their broad brushstrokes, inventive perspectives, colours, contours and designs, these paintings represent the style he sought.

 

Major Series

 

Van Gogh's stylistic developments are usually linked to the periods he spent living in different places across Europe. He was inclined to immerse himself in local cultures and lighting conditions, although he maintained a highly individual visual outlook throughout.

 

His evolution as an artist was slow, and he was aware of his limitations. He moved home often, perhaps to expose himself to new visual stimuli, and through exposure develop his technical skill.

 

Art historian Melissa McQuillan believes the moves also reflect later stylistic changes, and that Van Gogh used the moves to avoid conflict, and as a coping mechanism for when the idealistic artist was faced with the realities of his then current situation.

 

Portraits

 

Van Gogh said that portraiture was his greatest interest. In 1890 he wrote:

 

"What I'm most passionate about,

much much more than all the rest

in my profession is the portrait, the

modern portrait.

It is the only thing in painting that

moves me deeply and that gives

me a sense of the infinite."

 

He wrote to his sister that he wished to paint portraits that would endure, and that he would use colour to capture their emotions and character rather than aiming for photographic realism.

 

Those closest to Van Gogh are mostly absent from his portraits; he rarely painted Theo, Van Rappard or Bernard. The portraits of his mother were from photographs.

 

Van Gogh painted Arles' postmaster Joseph Roulin and his family repeatedly. In five versions of La Berceuse (The Lullaby), Van Gogh painted Augustine Roulin quietly holding a rope that rocks the unseen cradle of her infant daughter. Van Gogh had planned for it to be the central image of a triptych, flanked by paintings of sunflowers.

 

Self-portraits

 

Van Gogh created more than 43 self-portraits between 1885 and 1889. They were usually completed in series, such as those painted in Paris in mid-1887, and continued until shortly before his death. Generally the portraits were studies, created during periods when he was reluctant to mix with others, or when he lacked models, and so painted himself.

 

The self-portraits reflect a high degree of self-scrutiny. Often they were intended to mark important periods in his life; for example, the mid-1887 Paris series were painted at the point where he became aware of Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Signac.

 

In Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat, heavy strains of paint spread outwards across the canvas. It is one of his most renowned self-portraits of that period. It features highly organized rhythmic brushstrokes, and the novel halo derived from the Neo-impressionist repertoire was what Van Gogh himself called a 'purposeful' canvas.

 

The self-portraits contain a wide array of physiognomic representations. Van Gogh's mental and physical condition is usually apparent; he may appear unkempt, unshaven or with a neglected beard, with deeply sunken eyes, a weak jaw, or having lost teeth.

 

Some show him with full lips, a long face or prominent skull, or sharpened, alert features. His hair is sometimes depicted in a vibrant reddish hue, and at other times ash colored.

 

Van Gogh's self-portraits vary stylistically. In those painted after December 1888, the strong contrast of vivid colours highlight the haggard pallor of his skin. Some depict the artist with a beard, others without. He can be seen with bandages in portraits executed just after he mutilated his ear. In only a few does he depict himself as a painter.

 

Those painted in Saint-Rémy show the head from the right, the side opposite his damaged ear, as he painted himself reflected in his mirror.

 

Flowers

 

Van Gogh painted several landscapes with flowers, including roses, lilacs, irises, and sunflowers. Some reflect his interests in the language of colour, and also in Japanese ukiyo-e.

 

There are two series of dying sunflowers. The first was painted in Paris in 1887, and shows flowers lying on the ground. The second set was completed a year later in Arles, and is of bouquets in a vase positioned in early morning light. Both are built from thickly layered paintwork, which, according to the London National Gallery, evoke the "texture of the seed-heads".

 

In these series, Van Gogh was not preoccupied by his usual interest in filling his paintings with subjectivity and emotion; rather, the two series are intended to display his technical skill and working methods to Gauguin, who was about to visit.

 

The 1888 paintings were created during a rare period of optimism for the artist. Vincent wrote to Theo in August 1888:

 

"I'm painting with the gusto of a Marseillais eating bouillabaisse, which won't surprise you when it's a

question of painting large sunflowers.

If I carry out this plan there'll be a dozen or so panels.

The whole thing will therefore be a symphony in blue

and yellow.

I work on it all these mornings, from sunrise. Because

the flowers wilt quickly and it's a matter of doing the

whole thing in one go."

 

The sunflowers were painted to decorate the walls in anticipation of Gauguin's visit, and Van Gogh placed individual works around the Yellow House's guest room in Arles.

 

Gauguin was deeply impressed, and later acquired two of the Paris versions. After Gauguin's departure, Van Gogh imagined the two major versions of the sunflowers as wings of the Berceuse Triptych, and included them in his Les XX in Brussels exhibit.

 

Today the major pieces of the series are among his best known, celebrated for the sickly connotations of the colour yellow and its tie-in with the Yellow House, the expressionism of the brush strokes, and their contrast against often dark backgrounds.

 

Cypresses and Olives

 

Fifteen canvases depict cypresses, a tree he became fascinated with in Arles. He brought life to the trees, which were traditionally seen as emblematic of death.

 

The series of cypresses he began in Arles featured the trees in the distance, as windbreaks in fields; however when he was at Saint-Rémy he brought them to the foreground. Vincent wrote to Theo in May 1889:

 

"Cypresses still preoccupy me, I should

like to do something with them like my

canvases of sunflowers. They are beautiful

in line and proportion like an Egyptian

obelisk."

 

In mid-1889, and at his sister Wil's request, Van Gogh painted several smaller versions of Wheat Field with Cypresses. The works are characterised by swirls and densely painted impasto, and include The Starry Night, in which cypresses dominate the foreground.

 

In addition to this, other notable works on cypresses include Cypresses (1889), Cypresses with Two Figures (1889–90), and Road with Cypress and Star (1890).

 

During the last six or seven months of the year 1889, he had also created at least fifteen paintings of olive trees, a subject which he considered as demanding and compelling.

 

Among these works are Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background (1889), about which in a letter to his brother Van Gogh wrote:

 

"At last I have a landscape with olives".

 

While in Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh spent time outside the asylum, where he painted trees in the olive groves. In these works, natural life is rendered as gnarled and arthritic as if a personification of the natural world, which are, according to Hughes, filled with "a continuous field of energy of which nature is a manifestation".

 

Orchards

 

The Flowering Orchards and Orchards in Blossom are among the first groups of work completed after Van Gogh's arrival in Arles in February 1888. The 14 paintings are optimistic, joyous and visually expressive of the burgeoning spring. They are delicately sensitive and unpopulated.

 

Vincent painted swiftly, and although he brought to this series a version of Impressionism, a strong sense of personal style began to emerge during this period. The transience of the blossoming trees, and the passing of the season, seemed to align with his sense of impermanence and belief in a new beginning in Arles.

 

During the blossoming of the trees that spring, he found:

 

"A world of motifs that could not

have been more Japanese".

 

Vincent wrote to Theo on the 21st. April 1888 that he had 10 orchards and:

 

"One big painting of a cherry

tree, which I've spoiled".

 

During this period Van Gogh mastered the use of light by subjugating shadows and painting the trees as if they are the source of light – almost in a sacred manner. Early the following year he painted another smaller group of orchards, including View of Arles, Flowering Orchards.

 

Van Gogh was enthralled by the landscape and vegetation of the south of France, and often visited the farm gardens near Arles. In the vivid light of the Mediterranean climate his palette significantly brightened.

 

Wheat Fields

 

Van Gogh made several painting excursions during visits to the landscape around Arles. He made paintings of harvests, wheat fields and other rural landmarks of the area, including The Old Mill (1888); a good example of a picturesque structure bordering the wheat fields beyond.

 

At various points, Van Gogh painted the view from his window – at The Hague, Antwerp, and Paris. These works culminated in The Wheat Field series, which depicted the view from his cells in the asylum at Saint-Rémy.

 

Many of the late paintings are sombre but essentially optimistic and, right up to the time of Van Gogh's death, reflect his desire to return to lucid mental health. Yet some of his final works reflect his deepening concerns.

 

Van Gogh was captivated by the fields in May when the wheat was young and green. His Wheat Fields at Auvers with White House shows a more subdued palette of yellows and blues, which creates a sense of idyllic harmony.

 

In July 1890, Van Gogh wrote to Theo of

 

"Vast fields of wheat under troubled skies".

 

Wheat Field with Crows shows the artist's state of mind in his final days; Hulsker describes the work as:

 

"A doom-filled painting with threatening

skies and ill-omened crows".

 

Its dark palette and heavy brushstrokes convey a sense of menace.

 

Vincent van Gogh's Reputation and Legacy

 

After Van Gogh's first exhibitions in the late 1880's, his reputation grew steadily among artists, art critics, dealers and collectors. In 1887, André Antoine hung Van Gogh's alongside works of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, at the Théâtre Libre in Paris; some were acquired by Julien Tanguy.

 

In 1889, his work was described in the journal Le Moderniste Illustré by Albert Aurier as characterised by "fire, intensity, sunshine".

 

Ten paintings were shown at the Société des Artistes Indépendants, in Brussels in January 1890. French president Marie François Sadi Carnot was said to have been impressed by Van Gogh's work.

 

After Van Gogh's death, memorial exhibitions were held in Brussels, Paris, The Hague and Antwerp. His work was shown in several high-profile exhibitions, including six works at Les XX; in 1891 there was a retrospective exhibition in Brussels.

 

In 1892, Octave Mirbeau wrote that Van Gogh's suicide was:

 

"An infinitely sadder loss for art ... even

though the populace has not crowded

to a magnificent funeral, and poor Vincent

van Gogh, whose demise means the

extinction of a beautiful flame of genius,

has gone to his death as obscure and

neglected as he lived."

 

Theo died in January 1891, removing Vincent's most vocal and well-connected champion. Theo's widow Johanna van Gogh-Bonger was a Dutchwoman in her twenties who had not known either her husband or her brother-in-law very long, and who suddenly had to take care of several hundreds of paintings, letters and drawings, as well as her infant son, Vincent Willem van Gogh.

 

Gauguin was not inclined to offer assistance in promoting Van Gogh's reputation, and Johanna's brother Andries Bonger also seemed lukewarm about his work.

 

Aurier, one of Van Gogh's earliest supporters among the critics, died of typhoid fever in 1892 at the age of 27.

 

In 1892, Émile Bernard organised a small solo show of Van Gogh's paintings in Paris, and Julien Tanguy exhibited his Van Gogh paintings with several consigned from Johanna van Gogh-Bonger.

 

In April 1894, the Durand-Ruel Gallery in Paris agreed to take 10 paintings on consignment from Van Gogh's estate. In 1896, the Fauvist painter Henri Matisse, then an unknown art student, visited John Russell on Belle Île off Brittany.

 

Russell had been a close friend of Van Gogh; he introduced Matisse to the Dutchman's work, and gave him a Van Gogh drawing. Influenced by Van Gogh, Matisse abandoned his earth-coloured palette for bright colours.

 

In Paris in 1901, a large Van Gogh retrospective was held at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery, which excited André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck, and contributed to the emergence of Fauvism.

 

Important group exhibitions took place with the Sonderbund artists in Cologne in 1912, the Armory Show, New York in 1913, and Berlin in 1914.

 

Henk Bremmer was instrumental in teaching and talking about Van Gogh, and introduced Helene Kröller-Müller to Van Gogh's art; she became an avid collector of his work. The early figures in German Expressionism such as Emil Nolde acknowledged a debt to Van Gogh's work.

 

Bremmer assisted Jacob Baart de la Faille, whose catalogue raisonné L'Oeuvre de Vincent van Gogh appeared in 1928.

 

Van Gogh's fame reached its first peak in Austria and Germany before the Great War, helped by the publication of his letters in three volumes in 1914. His letters are expressive and literate, and have been described as among the foremost 19th.-century writings of their kind.

 

The letters began a compelling mythology of Van Gogh as an intense and dedicated painter who suffered for his art and died young. In 1934, the novelist Irving Stone wrote a biographical novel of Van Gogh's life titled Lust for Life, based on Van Gogh's letters to Theo.

 

The novel and the 1956 film further enhanced his fame, especially in the United States where Stone surmised only a few hundred people had heard of Van Gogh prior to his surprise best-selling book.

 

In 1957, Francis Bacon based a series of paintings on reproductions of Van Gogh's The Painter on the Road to Tarascon, the original of which was destroyed during the Second World War.

 

Bacon was inspired by an image he described as "haunting", and regarded Van Gogh as an alienated outsider, a position which resonated with him. Bacon identified with Van Gogh's theories of art and quoted lines written to Theo:

 

"Real painters do not paint things as

they are ... They paint them as they

themselves feel them to be."

 

Van Gogh's works are among the world's most expensive paintings. Those sold for over US$100 million (today's equivalent) include Portrait of Dr Gachet, Portrait of Joseph Roulin and Irises.

 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired a copy of Wheat Field with Cypresses in 1993 for US$57 million by using funds donated by publisher, diplomat and philanthropist Walter Annenberg.

 

In 2015, L'Allée des Alyscamps sold for US$66.3 million at Sotheby's, New York, exceeding its reserve of US$40 million.

 

Minor planet 4457 Van Gogh is named in his honour.

 

In October 2022, two activists protesting the effects of the fossil fuel industry on climate change threw a can of tomato soup on Van Gogh's Sunflowers in the National Gallery, London, and then glued their hands to the gallery wall. As the painting was covered by glass it was not damaged.

 

The Van Gogh Museum

 

Van Gogh's nephew and namesake, Vincent Willem van Gogh (1890–1978), inherited the estate after his mother's death in 1925. During the early 1950's he arranged for the publication of a complete edition of the letters presented in four volumes and several languages.

 

He then began negotiations with the Dutch government to subsidise a foundation to purchase and house the entire collection. Theo's son participated in planning the project in the hope that the works would be exhibited under the best possible conditions.

 

The project began in 1963; architect Gerrit Rietveld was commissioned to design the museum, and after his death in 1964, Kisho Kurokawa took charge. Work progressed throughout the 1960's, with 1972 as the target for its grand opening.

 

The Van Gogh Museum opened in the Museumplein in Amsterdam in 1973. It became the second most popular museum in the Netherlands, after the Rijksmuseum, regularly receiving more than 1.5 million visitors a year.

 

In 2015 it had an attendance of a record 1.9 million individuals. Eighty-five percent of the visitors come from other countries.

 

Nazi-Looted Art

 

During the Nazi period (1933–1945) a great number of artworks by Van Gogh changed hands, many of them looted from Jewish collectors who were forced into exile or murdered.

 

Some of these works have disappeared into private collections. Others have since resurfaced in museums, or at auction, or have been reclaimed, often in high-profile lawsuits, by their former owners.

 

The German Lost Art Foundation still lists dozens of missing Van Goghs, and the American Alliance of Museums lists 73 van Goghs on the Nazi Era Provenance Internet Portal.

Collection pointilliste du KMM, Otterlo, NL,

Signac, Seurat, un van Gogh, et d'autres.

visite du 27 mai 2009

© gaelle kermen 2009

Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Camille Pissarro (10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but then in the Danish West Indies). His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Pissarro studied from great forerunners, including Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. He later studied and worked alongside Georges Seurat and Paul Signac when he took on the Neo-Impressionist style at the age of 54.

 

In 1873 he helped establish a collective society of fifteen aspiring artists, becoming the "pivotal" figure in holding the group together and encouraging the other members. Art historian John Rewald called Pissarro the "dean of the Impressionist painters", not only because he was the oldest of the group, but also "by virtue of his wisdom and his balanced, kind, and warmhearted personality". Cézanne said "he was a father for me. A man to consult and a little like the good Lord," and he was also one of Gauguin's masters. Renoir referred to his work as "revolutionary", through his artistic portrayals of the "common man", as Pissarro insisted on painting individuals in natural settings without "artifice or grandeur".

 

Pissarro is the only artist to have shown his work at all eight Paris Impressionist exhibitions, from 1874 to 1886. He "acted as a father figure not only to the Impressionists" but to all four of the major Post-Impressionists, including Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Pissarro

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...

 

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(c) Dr Stanislav Shmelev

 

I am absolutely delighted to let you know that my new album, 'ECOSYSTEMS' has just been published: stanislav.photography/ecosystems

It has been presented at the Club of Rome 50th Anniversary meeting, the United Nations COP24 conference on climate change, a large exhibition held at the Mathematical Institute of Oxford University and the Environment Europe Oxford Spring School in Ecological Economics and now at the United Nations World Urban Forum 2020. There are only 450 copies left so you will have to be quick: stanislav.photography/ecosystems

 

You are most welcome to explore my new website: stanislav.photography/ and a totally new blog: environmenteurope.wordpress.com/

 

#EnvironmentEurope #EcologicalEconomics #ECOSYSTEMS #sustainability #GreenEconomy #renewables #CircularEconomy #Anthropocene #ESG #cities #resources #values #governance #greenfinance #sustainablefinance #climate #climatechange #climateemergency #renewableenergy #planetaryboundaries #democracy #energy #accounting #tax #ecology #art #environment #SustainableDevelopment #contemporary #photography #nature #biodiversity #conservation #coronavirus #nature #protection #jungle #forest #palm #tree #Japan #Europe #USA #South #America #Colombia #Brazil #France #Denmark #Russia #Kazakhstan #Germany #Austria #Singapore #Albania #Italy #landscape #new #artwork #collect #follow #like #share #film #medium #format #Hasselblad #Nikon #CarlZeiss #lens

Musee des Beaux-Arts, Nancy

On the coldest day ever, a visit to see the best art ever, Metropolitan Museum, New York, February 2016.

BE INSPIRED by reading the full article in Italian, Russian or English at architetturadesign.ch/?p=1376

 

#Art #Fondationdelhermitage #Mancassola #Mdcreativelab #Neoimpressionism #Paulsignac #Pointillism #Лозанна #Польсиньяк #Пуантилизм #Синьяк

Brinon-sur-Sauldre (Cher).

 

Eglise Saint-Bathélémy (XIe - XIIe siècle).

 

Jusque vers 1800, l’église porte le vocable de Saint Aignan qui est ensuite remplacé par celui de Saint Barthélemy.

 

La particularité de l’église est son "caquetoire". C’est une galerie extérieure construite sous charpente et auvent, sur un soubassement en pierre et brique. Elle garnit non seulement la façade mais également une grande partie du côté sud. On peut en dater la construction au XVe-XVIème siècle, après l’affranchissement des habitants. Le caquetoire servait d’abri aux réunions paroissiales qui se tenaient à la sortie de la messe sous la présidence du bailly. Il servait aussi d'abri, de halles pour les marchés et de lieu de repos et de discussion entre les paroissiens qui venaient y "caqueter"…

 

C'est le dernier caquetoire du Département du Cher.

  

Une aquarelle de Paul Signac (1863-1935), représentant l'église de Brinon-sur-Sauldre, datée de 1929, était mise en vente à Versailles, en 2015. (www.pillon-encheres.com/html/fiche.jsp?id=5175053&np=...)

  

by little_art_factory ift.tt/1XXypOD

Paul Signac - Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde - 1905-6

Oil on canvas, 74 x 92,4 cm. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Partial and Promised Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Dillon, 1998

 

Signac, an avid yachtsman, is best known for his glorious views of French ports and luminous seascapes. This work depicts the harbor of Port-Tudy on the Île-de-Groix, a small island off the coast of southern Brittany opposite Lorient. Painted in 1925, it shows the mosaic-like strokes of color that were the hallmark of Signac's late style.

The display reads:

 

Paul Signac

France, 1863 - 1935

 

Coast Scene

1893

Oil on canvas

 

Aaron M. and Clara Weitzenhoffer Bequest, 2000

 

Taken September 2nd, 2011.

paul signac cap lombard 1863

Paul Signac, 1863 - 1935. Antibes, las Torres, 1911.

Antibes, die Türme

Antibes, the Towers

Albertina, Sammlung Batliner

 

Sobre la exposición Monet a Picasso:

La presentación "Monet a Picasso. La Colección Batliner"

"Monet a Picasso" ofrece una panorámica general informativa sobre uno de los capítulos más emocionantes en la historia del arte: el cambio desde el arte figurativo al arte abstracto.

Sobre la base de aproximadamente 250 obras, la progresión continua desde el impresionismo al modernismo de manera fácil de entender puede ser rastreada. Por la feliz articulación de la Colección Batliner con fondos de la Albertina, complementado por la Colección Forberg, fueron obtenidos extensos conjuntos de obras de artistas revolucionarios que hacen posible para dar una visión de conjunto acerca de los diversos "ismos" de los tiempos modernos. En el centro de esta presentación es la Colección Batliner que fue en mayo de 2007 por la Fundación Herbert y Rita Batliner entregado a la Albertina.

El arco de la exposición comienza con el impresionismo francés con obras sobresalientes tardías de Monet ("Lago de Nenúfares") y Degas ("Dos Bailarinas"), el Post-Impresionismo (Toulouse-Lautrec y Cézanne), Fauvismo (Matisse) y Neo-Impresionismo.

Un paso importante en el camino hacia la abstracción representa el cubismo, que está representado brillantemente con Braque y Picasso. El surrealismo de Ernst, Miró, Klee y Magritte está representado así como la vanguardia rusa con Lissitzky y Malevich.

El arco concluye con ejemplos del expresionismo abstracto, representada por obras de Appel, Rothko y Newman, y el Nuevo Realismo de Yves Klein.

Por primera vez, una colección de exposiciones permanente de la modernidad clásica como una unidad de cuadros y gráficos: en 2008, la Albertina fue ampliado de 2.000 m2. Esto ofrece la posibilidad de crear una colección permanente en exhibición de esta generosa nueva llegada. Esta exposición permanente mostra principalmente el modernismo clásico de la Colección Batliner, una en su importancia y la generosidad único enriquecimiento de los museos en la capital austriaca de Viena.

"La Colección Batliner disfruta desde muchos años de una excelente reputación entre los conocedores y museos."

(Spies Prof. Dr. Werner)

Por la primera vez, ahora en Viena maestros del modernismo clásico pueden ser presentado. Siempre ha sido una aspiración de la Albertina y su director Klaus Albrecht Schröder representar el arte desde la perspectiva de los dibujos de manera integral y de una variedad de ámbitos. Los gráficos y el arte sobre lienzo no se pueden ver de forma aislada. Dibujos y gráficos no pretenden ser un evento especial para especialistas sino como una forma de arte, entre otros. Este concepto ha sido bien recibido tambien por los visitantes. A través de la presentación global del arte, la Albertina podría alcanzar completamente nuevos públicos: solamente en los cuatro años desde su reapertura en 2003, contó el Albertina más de tres millones de visitantes, muchos de ellos eran por primera vez en la casa.

 

About the exhibition Monet to Picasso:

The presentation "Monet to Picasso. The Batliner Collection"

"Monet to Picasso" provides an informative overview of one of the most exciting chapters in the history of art: the turn from figurative to abstract art.

On the basis of approximately 250 works, the continuous progression from Impressionism to Modernism is clearly depicted. By fortunate interlocking of the Batliner Collection with collections of the Albertina, supplemented by the Forberg Collection, emerged extensive ensembles of works of groundbreaking artists that make it possible to give an overall view about the various "isms" of modern times. The focus of this presentation is the Batliner Collection, which was passed by the Foundation Herbert and Rita Batliner in May 2007 to the Albertina.

The bow of the exhibition begins with the French Impressionism with outstanding late works by Monet ("Water Lily Pond") and Degas ("Two Dancers"), the Post-Impressionism (Toulouse-Lautrec and Cézanne), Fauvism (Matisse) and Neo-Impressionism.

An important step on the way to abstraction represents the Cubism which is represented brilliantly with Braque and Picasso. The surrealism of Ernst, Miró, Klee and Magritte is represented as well as the Russian avant-garde with Lissitzky and Malevich.

The arc concludes with examples of Abstract Expressionism, represented by works by Appel, Rothko and Newman and the New Realism of Yves Klein.

For the first time, a permanent exhibition collection of classical modernism as a unit of paintings and graphics: 2008, the Albertina was extended by 2,000 m2. This offered the possibility of creating a permanent viewing collection of this generous new arrival. This permanent exhibition collection shows mainly the classic modernism of the Batliner Collection, a unique enrichment in its importance and generosity of the museums in the Austrian capital Vienna.

"The Batliner Collection enjoys since many years an excellent reputation among connoisseurs and museums."

(Prof. Dr. Werner Spies)

For the first time, masters of classical modernism can now be presented in Vienna. It has always been an aspiration of the Albertina and its director Klaus Albrecht Schröder to represent art from the perspective of the drawing integrally and discipline-crossingly. Graphics and art on canvas can not be seen isolated. Drawings and graphics are not intended as a special event for specialists, but as an art form among others. This concept has been well received by the visitors. Through the holistic presentation of art, the Albertina could reach completely new audiences: in the four years alone since its reopening in 2003, counted the Albertina more than three million visitors, many of them being for the first time in the house.

 

Über die Ausstellung Monet bis Picasso:

Die Präsentation „MONET bis PICASSO. Die Sammlung BATLINER“

„Monet bis Picasso“ bietet einen informativen Überblick über eines der spannendsten Kapitel in der Kunstgeschichte: die Wende von der figurativen zur abstrakten Kunst.

Anhand von ca. 250 Werken kann das kontinuierliche Fortschreiten vom Impressionismus zur Moderne anschaulich nachvollzogen werden. Durch die glückliche Verzahnung der Sammlung Batliner mit Beständen der Albertina, ergänzt durch die Sammlung Forberg, kamen umfassende Werkblöcke bahnbrechender Künstler zustande, die es ermöglichen, eine Zusammenschau über die vielfältigen „Ismen“ der Moderne zu geben. Im Zentrum dieser Präsentation steht die Sammlung Batliner, die von der Stiftung Herbert und Rita Batliner im Mai 2007 der Albertina übergeben wurde.

Der Bogen der Ausstellung setzt an beim französischen Impressionismus mit herausragenden Alterswerken von Monet („Seerosenteich“) und Degas („Zwei Tänzerinnen“), dem Postimpressionismus (Toulouse-Lautrec und Cézanne), Fauvismus (Matisse) und Neo-Impressionismus.

Einen wichtigen Schritt auf dem Weg zur Abstraktion stellt der Kubismus dar, der mit Braque und Picasso fulminant vertreten ist. Der Surrealismus eines Ernst, Miró, Klee und Magritte ist ebenso vertreten wie die russische Avantgarde mit Lissitzky und Malewitsch.

Der Bogen schließt mit Beispielen des Abstrakten Expressionismus, vertreten durch Werke von Appel, Rothko und Newman, und dem Neuen Realismus eines Ives Klein.

Erstmals eine permanente Schausammlung der klassischen Moderne als Einheit von Gemälde und Grafik: 2008 wird die Albertina um 2.000 m2 erweitert. Dadurch bietet sich die Möglichkeit, eine ständige Schausammlung dieses großzügigen Neuzugangs einzurichten. Diese permanente Schausammlung wird vor allem die klassische Moderne der Sammlung Batliner zeigen, eine in ihrer Bedeutung und Großzügigkeit einzigartige Bereicherung der Museen in der Bundeshauptstadt Wien.

„Die Sammlung Batliner genießt seit vielen Jahren höchstes Ansehen bei Kennern und Museen.“

(Prof. Dr. Werner Spies)

Erstmals können nun in Wien die Meister der klassischen Moderne präsentiert werden. Immer schon war es ein Bestreben der Albertina und ihres Direktors Klaus Albrecht Schröder, Kunst aus dem Blickwinkel der Zeichnung ganzheitlich und gattungsübergreifend darzustellen. Grafik und Kunst auf Leinwand können nicht isoliert betrachtet werden. Zeichnung und Grafik sind nicht als Spezialveranstaltung für Spezialisten gedacht, sondern als eine Kunstform unter anderen. Dieses Konzept wurde auch von den Besucher positiv aufgenommen. Durch die ganzheitliche Präsentation von Kunst konnte die Albertina völlig neue Besucherschichten erreichen: Allein in den vier Jahren seit der Wiedereröffnung 2003 zählte die Albertina über drei Millionen Besucher, viele davon waren zum ersten Mal im Haus.

www.wien-konkret.at/kultur/museum/albertina/ausstellung-m...

 

印象派及現代藝術日拍及晚拍

蘇富比2019紐約秋拍臺北預展

Impressionist & Modern Art Evening and Day

Sotheby's New York Autumn Auctions 2019 Taipei Preview

Oct. 24-25, 2019.

Vincent van Gogh

Dutch, 1853-1890

 

Fishing in Spring, the Pont de Clichy

(Asnières), 1887

Oil on canvas

 

In technique, Fishing in Spring is a testament to Vincent

van Gogh's friendship with Paul Signac. Van Gogh had

seen works by Signac and Georges Seurat in the spring

of 1886 at the final Impressionist exhibition. Signac was

an eloquent spokesman for Seurat's pioneering. Neo-Impressionism,

explaining it as a natural development of

Impressionism. Under Signac's influence, Van Gogh's

palette brightened, his brushstrokes became more varied,

and his subject matter expanded. The setting of this

work is the Seine River at the Pont de Clichy, near

Asnières, where Van Gogh and Signac painted together

on several occasions.

Marcel Sembat né le 19 octobre 1862 à Bonnières-sur-Seine et mort le 5 septembre 1922 à Chamonix, est un homme politique et ministre français.

Docteur en droit, avocat auprès de la cour d'appel de Paris, Marcel Sembat fut également journaliste, chroniqueur judiciaire à La République française, le journal de Léon Gambetta. Cofondateur de La Revue de l'évolution, il adhéra au Comité révolutionnaire central (parti socialiste de tendance blanquiste), qui devint en 1897 le Parti socialiste révolutionnaire, dont il fut un des dirigeants, puis le Parti socialiste de France en 1902 et la SFIO en 1905. Directeur de La Petite République, le journal socialiste animé par Jean Jaurès, il collabora à La Revue socialiste, à La Lanterne, à L'Humanité, journal dans lequel il tint une rubrique de politique étrangère.

Devenu député socialiste de Paris, il est l'une des figures les plus illustres de la SFIO. Ministre des Travaux publics en 1914 dans le gouvernement d'union nationale, franc-maçon, il fut vice-président du Conseil de l'Ordre du GODF. Il fut membre de la Ligue des droits de l'homme (LDH).

En 1893, il fut élu député socialiste indépendant de la Seine, dans la première circonscription du XVIIIe arrondissement de Paris. Il fut constamment réélu jusqu'à son décès. En 1905 il vote la loi de séparation des Églises et de l'État. Auteur d'un pamphlet pacifiste, Faites un roi sinon la paix, il fut néanmoins appelé au gouvernement comme ministre des Travaux publics, dans le gouvernement Viviani, dit gouvernement d'union sacrée, le 27 août 1914. Il fut maintenu dans ses fonctions dans le cabinet Briand jusqu'au 12 décembre 1916. Son cabinet était dirigé par Léon Blum et comptait également le poète Gustave Kahn. Au congrès de Tours en décembre 1920, il vota contre l'adhésion à la IIIe Internationale. Il mourut brusquement à Chamonix en 1922 d'une hémorragie cérébrale.

Marcel Sembat avait épousé Georgette Agutte, peintre fauve et sculpteur (qui légua au musée de Grenoble une importante collection de peintures de Matisse, Derain, Rouault, Signac, Vlaminck et Van Dongen.Chaque année, pendant l’entre-deux-guerres, était organisé un « pèlerinage » de militants socialistes sur la tombe de Marcel Sembat à Bonnières-sur-Seine. Mais la Seconde Guerre mondiale mit fin à cette tradition et Marcel Sembat tomba peu à peu dans l’oubli.

 

www.mostrepalazzobonaparte.it/impressionisti-segreti

Amedeo Modigliani en Paul Signac

 

Kröller-Müller Museum,

Otterlo,

Hoge Veluwe National Park

 

krollermuller.nl/en/page/3740

The display reads:

 

Paul Signac

France, 1863 - 1935

 

Coast Scene

1893

Oil on canvas

 

Aaron M. and Clara Weitzenhoffer Bequest, 2000

 

Taken September 2nd, 2011.

Paul Signac - Places des Lices - St Tropez, 1893 at Carnegie Museum of Art - Pittsburgh PA

Huile sur toile, 65 x 92 cm, 1921.

Oil on canvas; 46x61 cm.

Private collection

LOT SOLD 1,155,000 USD | 71,650,124 RUB

15 MAY 2018 |NEW YORK

Paul Signac nació en París en 1863, en el seno de una familia de un pudiente maestro guarnicionero. Puede ser considerado pintor autodidacta. Comenzó su carrera como arquitecto, pero lo dejó a los dieciocho años para dedicarse a la pintura.

 

En 1882 se inscribe en la Escuela de Bellas Artes. En 1884 conoció a Monet y Georges Seurat. Quedó impresionado por los métodos de trabajo sistemáticos de Seurat y por su teoría de los colores y se convirtió en el fiel seguidor de Seurat. Bajo su influencia abandonó las cortas pinceladas del impresionismo para experimentar con los puntos de color puro, científicamente yuxtapuestos, que pretendían combinar entre sí, no mezclarse sobre el lienzo, sino en el ojo del espectador, el rasgo que define el puntillismo.

 

Navegó por las costas de Europa, pintando los paisajes que encontraba. Muchos de sus cuadros son de la costa francesa. Dejaba la capital todos los veranos, para permanecer en el sur de Francia, en la villa de Collioure o en Saint-Tropez, donde compró una casa a la que invitaba a sus amigos. En marzo de 1889, visitó a Vincent van Gogh en Arlés. Al año siguiente hizo un pequeño viaje a Italia, viendo Génova, Florencia, y Nápoles.

 

Signac amaba navegar y comenzó a viajar en 1892, en un barco pequeño a casi todos los puertos de Francia, Holanda y alrededor del Mediterráneo, llegando incluso hasta Constantinopla, teniendo la base de su barco en St. Tropez, que él "descubrió". De todos esos puertos en los que estuvo, Signac llevó consigo acuarelas vibrantes y coloridas, tomadas rápidamente del natural. A partir de estos pequeños esbozos, pintó grandes lienzos en su taller, que están cuidadosamente trabajados a partir de pequeños cuadrados de color, a modo de mosaico, bastante diferentes de los pequeños puntos multicolores que previamente había usado Seurat.

 

También pintó escenas de ciudades francesas en sus últimos años.

 

Signac experimentó con varios medios. Además de pintura al óleo y acuarelas, hizo aguafuertes, litografías, y muchos esbozos a pluma y tinta compuestos de pequeños y trabajados puntos. Los neoimpresionistas influyeron en la siguiente generación: Signac inspiró, en particular, a Henri Matisse y André Derain, desempeñando de esta manera un papel decisivo en el desarrollo del Fauvismo.

 

Como presidente de la «Société des Artistes Indépendants» desde 1908 hasta su muerte, Signac animó a artistas más jóvenes (fue el primero que compró una pintura de Matisse) exponiendo las controvertidas obras de los fauves y de los cubistas.

 

Haven Volendam.

Het hotel dateert uit 1881. Beroemde schilders zoals Paul Signac, Henry Cassiérs en Austin Hanicotte kwamen naar dit hotel om inspiratie op te doen. Vele van deze oude meesters betaalden hun verblijf met schilderijen. Dit heeft geresulteerd in een unieke verzameling van meer dan 100 kunstwerken.

 

The hotel dates from 1881. Famous painters as Sinac, Cassiérs and Hanicotte came here for inspiration. A lot of them paid their bills with paintings. So now the hotel owns a unique collection of approximately 1200 paintings.

Paul SIGNAC (1863-1935): Voiliers dans le port de Groix, vers 1927. Aquarelle (légère insolation) signée et datée en bas à gauche. Dim.: 19x28,5 cm. Un certificat de Madame Marine Ferretti en date du 30 mai 2016 sera remis à l acquéreur.

 

Kröller-Müller Museum,

Otterlo,

Hoge Veluwe National Park

 

krollermuller.nl/en/page/3748

1 available at the moment

Camille Pissarro (10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but then in the Danish West Indies). His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Pissarro studied from great forerunners, including Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. He later studied and worked alongside Georges Seurat and Paul Signac when he took on the Neo-Impressionist style at the age of 54.

 

In 1873 he helped establish a collective society of fifteen aspiring artists, becoming the "pivotal" figure in holding the group together and encouraging the other members. Art historian John Rewald called Pissarro the "dean of the Impressionist painters", not only because he was the oldest of the group, but also "by virtue of his wisdom and his balanced, kind, and warmhearted personality". Cézanne said "he was a father for me. A man to consult and a little like the good Lord," and he was also one of Gauguin's masters. Renoir referred to his work as "revolutionary", through his artistic portrayals of the "common man", as Pissarro insisted on painting individuals in natural settings without "artifice or grandeur".

 

Pissarro is the only artist to have shown his work at all eight Paris Impressionist exhibitions, from 1874 to 1886. He "acted as a father figure not only to the Impressionists" but to all four of the major Post-Impressionists, including Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Pissarro

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...

 

 

Traveller's World

 

Henri-Edmond CROSS (Henri-Edmond DELACROIX, dit)

Douai (France), 1856 - Le Lavandou (France), 1910

 

Le Cap Layet 1904

   

Henri-Edmond DELACROIX dit Henri-Edmond CROSS

Le Cap Layet, 1904

Avec Seurat et Signac, Cross est l'un des trois représentants du néo-impressionnisme. Brillant coloriste de la fin du siècle, il a exercé une influence déterminante sur la naissance du fauvisme. L'année 1891 est capitale pour lui : il adopte le divisionnisme alors que Seurat vient de mourir, et s'installe définitivement dans le Midi. À partir de 1903 et jusqu'à sa mort en 1910, Cross réalise le meilleur de son œuvre.

Le Cap Layet est un des nombreux sites de la côte provençale peints par Cross. Les éléments naturels servent de cadre à la composition. Le sol et deux pins très sinueux se détachent nettement sur la droite du tableau, au premier plan. Traités dans des valeurs foncées et des couleurs froides, bleu et vert, les arbres dessinent des arabesques purement décoratives. Les branches et les troncs, dégagés de toute réalité, sont prétextes à des lignes courbes dont le dessin autonome contraste avec l'ensemble du tableau. À l'arrière-plan, les motifs du paysage ensoleillé ne respectent pas davantage le ton local. Les passages et les gradations se font dans des couleurs plus lumineuses et plus transparentes mais tout aussi éclatantes et expressives que celles des arbres. L'exécution de la toile à l'aide de touches nettes et identiques participe à l'harmonie chromatique que l'artiste entend mettre en valeur.

Cross veut désormais faire de son art non seulement "la glorification de la Nature" mais la "glorification même d'une vision intérieure", où l'imagination jouerait un plus grand rôle.

  

L'itinéraire de Henri Edmond CROSS commence symboliquement dans le nord de la France puisqu'il naquit à Douai en 1856. Dès l'âge de dix ans un cousin, le Dr Soins, perçut en lui des dons artistiques et lui fit prendre des cours de dessin à Lille. Le jeune Henri Edmond Delacroix (son vrai nom) eut pour mentor et professeurs Carolus Duran, Alphonse Colas et plus tard à Paris, François Boivin. A 25 ans, il exposa pour la première fois au salon de 1881 sous son nom traduit en anglais : Cross, pour éviter toute confusion avec Eugène Delacroix.

Partageant les mêmes vues en esthétique picturale que Signac, Angrand ou Maximilien Luce et Théo van Rysselberghe, Cross adhèra très vite à la technique du pointillisme dans ses premières oeuvres. A cette époque celles-ci sont pour la plupart consacrées à la description des jardins de l'Observatoire et du Luxembourg. Ce fut aussi le temps d'une première découverte du midi de la France qui influença fortement Cross par la suite.

Mais la grande mutation de son style s'opéra en 1891. Au moment où disparaissait Georges Seurat, H.E.Cross vint au divisionnisme. Il rompit ainsi avec une esthétique qu'il pratiquait depuis dix ans pour adopter avec enthousiasme celle du groupe qui animait le Salon des Indépendants (manifestation dont il fut l'un des initiateurs dès 1884). L'ancien disciple des impressionnistes accrocha aux cimaises des Indépendants le portrait divisionniste de sa femme (conservé au Musée d'art moderne). Cross choisit de vivre en grande partie de l'année dans le Var, à Saint-Clair où il put méditer à loisir ses recherches sur la lumière et son observation de la nature. Il créa ainsi des chefs-d'oeuvres qui firent de lui l'égal d'un Turner ou d'un Poussin. La ferme le matin (1893), puis Mère jouant avec son enfant (1897), La vague. Cross réussit à exprimer une libération romantique du paysage. Dès lors son style si particulier commença à connaître la notoriété : les expositions se suivirent : en 1896 au Salon de l'art nouveau, et en 1899 à la Galerie Durand-Ruel.

Mais Cross fut aussi engagé politiquement puisqu'il fut l'ami des anarchistes et apporta son soutien à Jean Grave. Cependant le malheur physique accabla très vite ce poète de la lumière : des troubles rhumatismales puis occulaires vinrent altérer sa santé . Le peintre fit alors un séjour en Italie où il médita les oeuvres du Tintoret et de Canaletto. Avec Signac, Cross révèla de la provence une beauté naturelle inédite et incomparable : le fauvisme est là ,pressenti, annoncé et on sent poindre dans ses oeuvres du début du XXè siècle le germe d'une nouvelle harmonie chromatique qui fit école par la suite avec Matisse dans Luxe, calme et volupté et préfigura ainsi la doctrine de la nouvelle peinture abstraite.

 

www.museedegrenoble.fr/

 

Femmes au puits, Paul Signac, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Impressionists on the Water features approximately 85 works by Pre-Impressionists, Impressionists, and Post-Impressionists, including Charles-François Daubigny, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Gustave Caillebotte, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Théophile van Rysselberghe, Pierre Bonnard, and others. The exhibition also includes two boats and six boat models that further demonstrate the important role sailing, rowing, and yachting played in the social and artistic contexts of 19th-century France.

Presented in the Legion of Honor’s landmark building overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the Golden Gate Bridge, Impressionists on the Water offers a perfect opportunity for deeper engagement with maritime history, as well as the summer’s exciting regattas on the Bay.

 

Visiting Legion of Honor

Lincoln Park, 34th Avenue and Clement Street

San Francisco, CA 94121

legionofhonor.org

415-750-3600

Hours: Tuesdays–Sundays, 9:30 am–5:15 pm, last ticket 4:30 pm. Closed Mondays.

"Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde (La Bonne-Mère), Marseilles"

by Paul Signac, 1905-06

Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

 

19th- and Early 20th -Century European Paintings and Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art NHL & NHP in the Upper West Side in New York City, NY

"Antibes, the Pink Cloud". Paul Signac. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Paul Signac - The Lagoon of Saint Mark Venice, 1905 at Chrysler Museum of Art Norfolk VA

Les Andelys, La Berge (Les Andelys The Riverbank)

1886

Paul Signac (1863-1935)

Oil on canvas, H. 65; W. 81 cm

Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France

 

In June 1886, Signac lived for three months in the small Norman town of Les Andelys. He painted a series of ten landscapes there, using the Divisionist technique. Les Andelys; The Riverbank is one of the most important canvases in that series.

Signac exhibited this painting at the Salon des Artistes Indépendants in 1887, with three others also painted in Les Andelys. His work was noticed by the critics Paul Alexis, Gustave Kahn, Jules Christophe and Félix Fénéon. The latter commented: "Mr Signac's verve accentuates the bright contrasts in his new canvases, landscapes of Les Andelys, water and greenery" (Les Impressionnistes en 1886). Gustave Kahn was struck by the extraordinary luminous effect of these paintings: "It is the glare of the midday sun which is caught in these landscapes; of all those that we know they are the most deeply infused with the joy of things and illustrated with the magical effects of light" (La Vie moderne, 9 April 1887). The painting stayed in the artist's family until it joined the national collections in 1996.