Ah, everyone loves Van Gogh, one of the most covetable dead artists around. Except I don’t. Love all his work I mean. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is.
Having said that I have grown to admire and appreciate his work over the decades. This blockbuster exhibition marks 200 years of the National Gallery and is definitely worth a visit if you can as there may not be another like it in a generation.
The subject of this post is Van Gogh’s way with colour which is extraordinary. The flatness of this duck-egg sky in The Alyscamps, the straw-coloured poplars with that splash of pistachio. Then the blues centring on the church. Having looked closer though I can’t now unsee the sunglass-wearing hipster.
He used this combination of yellows, aquas and blues providing visual satisfaction in quite different pictures.
Even this sunflower painting works better for me with its aqua background. The National Gallery’s one has a yellow ground.
Van Gogh was interested in evoking emotion rather than the simple replication of what he saw. Photography could now do that anyway.
Here the interplay of light and shade confuses the eye: where do the trees end and their shadows begin?
The mark-making reminds me of Chinese and Japanese brush painting. Van Gogh used it to build up layers in a way that was unique to him, spawning generations of imitators.
This still life was a bit of a surprise, maybe an experiment? It’s the only time I’ve seen a painted frame around his work. If he decided against pursuing this idea (which I think he did) then he made the right decision.
This exhibition explores how intelligent and thoughtful the man was, how he considered and planned different themes.
My respect for him grows the more I see his work.
