VAN GOGH: BETWEEN PEACE AND MADNESS

Vincent van GoghIs there anything new to say about Vincent van Gogh? Only a fool would try, but the Kunstmuseum in Basel has come up with something unique. Before the end of September, should you be anywhere near this “Dreieck”, as the Germans call it (the busy corner where France, Germany and Switzerland meet), you cannot afford to miss this articulate, inspiring exhibition: “Between Earth and Heaven: The Landscapes”.

An alternative title might've been “Between Peace and Madness”. Although it is well known that Van Gogh was unstable--he tragically shot himself in the chest in July 1890--the cause or severity of his illness remain unclear. The 70 canvases in this show suggest that whatever chemical imbalances he might have suffered (however much absinthe he quaffed and however many sexual diseases he might have picked up) he was afflicted principally with the condition of seeing too intensely into things. 

Much could be written about any one of the works the Kunstmuseum has gathered together, which include rarely seen pieces from private collections and distant shores (Japan, Honolulu). One room alone, with four blistering pictures of olive trees executed in 1889 (on loan from Edinburgh, Kansas, Göteborg and Essen), could prompt a book on how one mind may apprehend natural form, and twist and reshape it into something new, remarkable and evocative.

But it is the work near the show’s end that confirms the force of Van Gogh’s vision. Look at “The Harvester” (1889): with its golds, yellows and oranges, the canvas seems to be on fire. In the next room, inhale the cooler atmosphere of three boulevard figures astride canoes on the Oise, from January 1890. Although at first glance it seems the painter was more calm after travelling north, a simple exercise reveals this was not the case. Forget both paintings. Shut your eyes. Then return to the canoes, as if for the first time. The painting is packed with taut angles, bristling foliage, attack, drama and vibrancy: even in the chill Van Gogh was unable to rest. This very energy--pathological, perhaps--is what makes his work, and this show, quite intoxicating.

"Vincent Van Gogh: Between Earth and Heaven: The Landscapes”, at Basel’s Kunstmuseum, ends on September 27th.

~ JAMES WOODALL

 

Picture Credit: jankie (via Flickr)

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Typo

August 25, 2009 - 22:42 — Visitor (not verified)

Just wanted to point out that Van Gogh committed suicide in 1890, not 1980!

Excellent--but might want to

August 25, 2009 - 22:45 — Visitor (not verified)

Excellent--but might want to check the date on suicide--I only wish he had been around in the 80s so I could have met him! Regards, angela

Thanks

August 26, 2009 - 06:32 — Emily Bobrow

Ah, well-spotted. Slipped past our beady eyes (clearly we lack Van Gogh's ability to see so intensely into things...).

Best,
Emily Bobrow
Editor

Between what is said to be peace & madness.

August 26, 2009 - 13:14 — vanrijngo (not verified)

You ask,.. is there anything new to say about Vincent van Gogh? I'd say in asking a question like this there is plenty that can be said, it is whether or not it is believable. You know,.. with all the lies that have already been told by MFA experts and assumed to be the truth.

Hear we go,.. talking about the different affliction that was Vincent's own supposed down falls, which they say more than likely caused all his madness. Well, my art loving friends,.. it's like this, Vincent had always been an artist, even when he was a child, drawing flowers arrangement with his artist mother while growing up as a young boy. He is known to have made many drawings for ones in his family or who ever wanted them that were friends of the family.

Much more could be written on his works of art as he was growing up, but what is known facts, Vincent did not pick up a brush until he was twenty seven, and now they are trying to change that till he turned twenty eight. They are even questioning quite a few of his juvenile drawing, saying that they are to perfect to be of his hand. The actual twists and reshape into something new and different, which they say,.. is remarkable and evocating, and now talking about what the ones who happened to have been in charge then,.... just as today changed history.

Well,.... have another sip of your wine and that will help in the intoxicating values of his works. If ones really knew his work, they could imagine what the few known women in his life, and oil portraits of them which happen to be in my own collection, would really be worth a look, say in a inspiring exhibition of their own.