tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/vincent-van-gogh-31028/articles
Vincent Van Gogh – The Conversation
2024-01-24T17:21:11Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219213
2024-01-24T17:21:11Z
2024-01-24T17:21:11Z
Van Gogh’s final months were his most productive
<p>Though he had spent the previous year at an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in the south of France, <a href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/art-and-stories/vincents-life-1853-1890">Vincent van Gogh</a> arrived in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, just north of Paris, in an optimistic mood. It was here, in 1890, that he would spend the last few months of his life which, despite the depression that would soon return, were his most productive.</p>
<p>The move offered him the prospect of a fresh start, close to his brother Theo, and under the watchful eye of Paul Gachet, a homeopathic doctor with an interest in art and mental wellbeing. Over the course of the next two months, Van Gogh produced no fewer than 74 paintings and more than 50 drawings, which are catalogued chronologically by Nienke Bakker, Emmanuel Coquery, Louis van Tilborgh and Teio Meedendorf in their book, <a href="https://thamesandhudson.com/van-gogh-in-auvers-sur-oise-his-final-months-9780500026731">Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise: His Final Months</a>. </p>
<p>As Van Tilborgh observes in the opening essay, Van Gogh’s final works have “a special, almost existential significance” for us. The paintings most closely identified with his final days include the profoundly melancholic <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/wheatfield-with-crows/dwFdD5AMQfpSew?hl=en-GB">Wheatfield with Crows</a> (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam), whose central path leads us through the golden wheat towards an intensely brooding sky. It was here, in the fields above Auvers, that Van Gogh would shoot himself at the age of 37 in July 1890.</p>
<p>As Meedendorf recounts, Van Gogh was initially enchanted by this “distinctive and picturesque” village nestling in the heart of the countryside. Accessible from Paris by train, it remained surprisingly unspoiled, with thatched whitewashed cottages and a distinctive medieval church.</p>
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<h2>At home in nature</h2>
<p>Unlike previous inhabitants of Auvers, such as the landscape artist and precursor of impressionism, <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/charles-francois-daubigny">Charles-François Daubigny</a>, Van Gogh ignored the nearby river Oise. He preferred to record the village, its quaint old buildings merging organically with the landscape and the surrounding vineyards. He also chose surprisingly modern motifs such as the town hall bedecked with flags and bunting on Bastille Day. </p>
<p>Another important subject, explored by Nienke Bakker, was a series of floral still lifes, painted between late May and mid-June 1890. Van Gogh had painted irises and roses as if “in a frenzy” towards the end of his stay at Saint-Rémy and was optimistic that his pictures would find a buyer, despite the fact that they had failed to do so in the past.</p>
<p>He had a preference for wild cornflowers, daisies, poppies, buttercups and thistles, but also painted Chinese asters, carnations and marigolds, blossoming chestnuts and acacia, rendered in rhythmic patterns that dominated the picture space.</p>
<p>Flowers and ears of wheat appear also in his portraits, most memorably in the two of Dr Gachet, leaning on his elbow in a <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2019/11/15/where-is-the-portrait-of-dr-gachet-the-mysterious-disappearance-of-van-goghs-most-expensive-painting">classic melancholic pose</a> and clutching a sprig of foxglove, which he used in his homeopathic remedies.</p>
<p>Gachet was an important early supporter, not only of Van Gogh, but of the impressionist artists <a href="https://www.camille-pissarro.org/biography.html">Camille Pissarro</a>, who lived at nearby Pontoise, and <a href="https://www.paul-cezanne.org/biography.html">Paul Cézanne</a>, who painted Gachet’s distinctive white house at Auvers.</p>
<h2>The final days</h2>
<p>The book includes a useful map of Auvers-sur-Oise which identifies many of the sites at which Van Gogh set up his easel. One of these is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jul/28/location-van-gogh-final-painting-tree-roots-postcard">Tree Roots</a>(Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam), recently identified as the final work produced by the artist.</p>
<p>It is one of a series of 13 works that were distinctive for their double-square format. As Emmanuel Coquery explains, the format derived from Daubigny, who is referenced in the third canvas in the series, <a href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0104v1962">Daubigny’s Garden</a> (Rudolf Staechelin Collection).</p>
<p>Daubigny is still celebrated today in the village. His house and studio, decorated by his friend Camille Corot, and also his children, have been preserved for posterity. So, too, has the room at the Auberge Ravoux, in which Van Gogh died on 29 July 1890. </p>
<p>Fittingly, the last two essays in this brilliantly researched and colourfully illustrated book focus on Van Gogh’s final days. Following a visit to Theo in early July, the artist was beset by an extended period of depression, brought on by feelings that he was becoming a burden to his brother.</p>
<p>In his letters he wrote: “My life … is attacked at the very root, my step also is faltering.” He described his latest landscapes as expressions of “sadness, extreme loneliness”. Eventually he shot himself in the chest with a revolver and died in Theo’s arms nearly two days later.</p>
<p>His body was laid to rest in a spacious, sunny plot in the graveyard, close to the wheatfields he loved so much. In 1914, Theo’s remains were transferred to the same ivy-covered grave, remarkable for its simplicity.</p>
<p>As the final essay by Bregje Gerritse and Sara Tas shows, even before his death, Van Gogh was beginning to be appreciated by critics such as Gustave Kahn and Albert Aurier.</p>
<p>He made his only recorded sale when the Belgian artist Anna Boch purchased <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/02/04/how-did-the-only-painting-sold-by-van-gogh-in-his-lifetime-end-up-in-russia">The Red Vineyard</a> (Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow) for 400 francs. Before long he would posthumously achieve the fame and commercial success he had so longed for.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frances Fowle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Despite his mental anguish, Van Gogh produced some of his greatest paintings in the last few months of his life.
Frances Fowle, Personal Chair of Nineteenth-Century Art, History of Art, The University of Edinburgh
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/201701
2023-03-22T11:28:57Z
2023-03-22T11:28:57Z
Van Gogh Museum at 50: what painter’s letters to his family expose about why he became an artist
<p>Vincent van Gogh fits the stereotypical image of the tragic modern artist: the tortured genius and scruffy bohemian battling mental ill-health and lack of recognition from peers and a public who couldn’t appreciate his audacious vision. </p>
<p>Now, of course, he is one of the world’s most famous artists, but it was only after his early death that his profound influence on Western art – laying the groundwork for the transition from impressionism to expressionism and beyond – became apparent and his artworks started to sell for millions.</p>
<p>As the <a href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en">Van Gogh Museum</a> in Amsterdam celebrates its 50th year it has mounted the exhibition <a href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/visit/whats-on/exhibitions/choosing-vincent">Choosing Vincent. Portrait of a Family History</a>, which explores how he become a world-famous artist and the role his family played in that.</p>
<p>But why exactly did van Gogh become an artist in the first place? Was it the natural calling of a creative visionary determined to turn the art world upside down? The inevitable outlet for an expressive and inventive mind? </p>
<p>We know he came to art in his late 20s, after a stint in the art trade and training for the clergy, but were these ventures undermined by his artistic temperament or mere stepping stones to the inevitable goal of expressive painting?</p>
<p>Historians and sociologists of art are fortunate when considering these questions compared to, say, those interested in the makings of Leonardo da Vinci or Rembrandt, because of the sheer volume of biographical material available on van Gogh. The most important element of this material is undoubtedly van Gogh’s letters. He wrote hundreds during his lifetime and they were preserved and published by his family after his death. Today they’re available online for free via the <a href="https://vangoghletters.org/vg/">Van Gogh Museum’s website</a>.</p>
<h2>Art and religion</h2>
<p>Psychologists and biographers have long pored over these letters to come up with various explanations for van Gogh’s life, some of them confirming or fuelling the popular images. This includes Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith’s <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/119583/van-gogh-by-steven-naifeh-and-gregory-white-smith/">mammoth biography</a> published over ten years ago, which staked many large claims about van Gogh’s state of mind on relatively thin evidence.</p>
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<p><em>This article is part of our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/vincent-van-gogh-31028">Van Gogh Museum at 50</a> series. These articles mark the 50th anniversary of Amsterdam’s pioneering gallery and explore evolving cultural perceptions of one of the world’s most famous artists.</em></p>
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<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00380385211069520">My own reading of the letters</a>, as a sociologist, suggests a much more down-to-earth view of van Gogh’s life and his decisions than the popular narratives might have us believe. This reading still ends in tragedy, for sure, but sees a man driven by the same desires and impulses as anyone else. His letters expose, to me, a man just as much trapped within the limits of his social background as any of us. </p>
<p>To put it in a nutshell, Vincent van Gogh’s decision to become an artist was underpinned in good part by his struggles for love and esteem within a thoroughly bourgeois family anxious about its standing.</p>
<p>It’s no accident that van Gogh’s three major professional callings were art trading, religion and art itself. They were all part of the world he grew up in. His father was a third-generation clergyman, his uncle an art trader and his mother an amateur artist well connected to the Dutch art world.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/van-gogh-museum-at-50-vincent-van-gogh-and-the-art-market-a-brief-history-197361">Van Gogh Museum at 50: Vincent van Gogh and the art market – a brief history</a>
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<p>Art was the common medium in the home for celebrating God and expressing awe at nature. Yet there was a sense of decline too.</p>
<h2>Rescuing the van Goghs</h2>
<p>Van Gogh’s father took theological stances at odds with Church orthodoxy and was not considered a strong public speaker, so he was consigned to a low-paid rural post in Brabant, the Netherlands. </p>
<p>His mother was felt to have married down. It was important, his family felt, that Vincent re-secure their place in society. This was, as their letters to him and his brother Theo make clear, key to their affection and often the source of their frustration.</p>
<p>Van Gogh’s parents poured money into boarding school for him, but being sent away only made him feel cast out of the family. Leaving school early, he was sent to work in his uncle’s business. </p>
<p>For a time he prospered, much to his parents’ delight, but when he was seconded to the London branch he again felt cut off from his family and lonely. A disastrous effort to find love with his landlady’s daughter turned into surliness and challenging behaviour in the workplace and he was fired.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/van-gogh-museum-at-50-how-galleries-are-challenging-the-tortured-genius-narrative-197854">Van Gogh Museum at 50: how galleries are challenging the 'tortured genius' narrative</a>
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<p>Unsurprisingly, given his heritage, van Gogh turned to religion, at first for solace but then as a way of realising his parents’ ambitions and saving himself in their eyes. He would be just like his father and enter the clergy. His parents hired tutors and pulled strings, but his limited schooling left him unprepared for the entrance examinations and he eventually gave up.</p>
<p>He still wanted to minister to the poor, for whom he felt sympathy, but his experiments in doing so in a Belgian mining community exposed the opposite problem: he considered them too coarse to get on with. His extreme efforts to lower himself to or below their level – dressing shabbily, sleeping rough and eating austerely – brought trouble with the local religious authority and he was cast out again. </p>
<p>His parents and siblings were distraught at his failures. Van Gogh was hurt and ashamed. </p>
<p>A little later, van Gogh sent a letter to his brother telling him he had taken up art. We do not know the explicit reasoning for this decision, but given he had failed in art trading and religion, we might suppose that, ultimately, art was the only avenue he had left to realise his parents’ ambitions and win favour in their eyes. </p>
<p>The greatest tragedy of van Gogh’s life, therefore, is less that he didn’t find fame or fortune in his lifetime – he never really craved that – but that his father died before anything came of his artistic ventures and his mother never approved of his artworks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201701/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Will Atkinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
His letters reveal a man straining under pressure from his parents to help better their family name.
Will Atkinson, Professor in School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197361
2023-03-22T11:28:37Z
2023-03-22T11:28:37Z
Van Gogh Museum at 50: Vincent van Gogh and the art market – a brief history
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503842/original/file-20230110-20-gccc7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4545%2C3387&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/amsterdam-october-3-van-gogh-museum-415294189">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Amsterdam’s <a href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en">Van Gogh Museum</a> turns 50 in 2023. The museum, dedicated to the art of one of the most famous artists in the world, attracts over two million visitors each year. </p>
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<p>Yet, despite his fame today, Vincent van Gogh allegedly made only one documented sale of a painting during his lifetime. This was The Red Vineyard, produced near Arles in Provence in the autumn of 1888.</p>
<p>The enlightened buyer was Belgian painter <a href="https://annaboch.com/">Anna Boch</a>, whose brother was a close friend of the artist. She spotted the vibrant landscape at the 1890 exhibition of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41825180">avant-garde group Les XX</a>, of which she was a member.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>This article is part of our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/vincent-van-gogh-31028">Van Gogh Museum at 50</a> series. These articles mark the 50th anniversary of Amsterdam’s pioneering gallery and explore evolving cultural perceptions of one of the world’s most famous artists.</em></p>
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<p>The price was 400 francs, the equivalent of around US$2000 (£1649) today, and would have seemed like a huge windfall to the struggling Van Gogh. If it were sold at auction today, the same painting could expect to fetch upwards of a hundred million US dollars.</p>
<p>Van Gogh dreamed of <a href="https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let670/letter.html">achieving posthumous fame</a> and it was not long after he took his own life in July 1890 that the market for his pictures began to develop.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503844/original/file-20230110-18-mkzgos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A landscape painting by Van Gogh depicting workers in a field at sunset." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503844/original/file-20230110-18-mkzgos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503844/original/file-20230110-18-mkzgos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503844/original/file-20230110-18-mkzgos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503844/original/file-20230110-18-mkzgos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503844/original/file-20230110-18-mkzgos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503844/original/file-20230110-18-mkzgos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503844/original/file-20230110-18-mkzgos.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Red Vineyard, the only painting Vincent van Gogh is certainly known to have sold during his lifetime.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pushkinmuseum.art/data/fonds/europe_and_america/j/0000_1000/zh_3372/index.php?lang=en">Pushkin Museum, Moscow</a></span>
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<p>Boch went on to buy a second painting, <a href="https://arthistory.co/vincent-van-gogh-peach-blossom-in-the-crau/">Peach Blossom in the Crau</a>, in 1891. In the same year Vincent’s art dealer brother Theo died of syphilis. Van Gogh had given a handful of works to the artists’ colour merchant Père Tanguy in Paris, but it was Theo’s widow, <a href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/about/knowledge-and-research/completed-research-projects/research-project-biography-of-jo-van-gogh-bonger">Jo van Gogh Bonger</a>, who would inherit the bulk of his vast oeuvre, making her the main source of his paintings.</p>
<p>As a result, she controlled the market for Van Gogh in Paris, Berlin, London and, eventually, New York.</p>
<h2>Europe’s art market discovers Van Gogh</h2>
<p>In 1901 the French poet Julien Leclercq, with Van Gogh Bonger’s assistance, organised <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/libraries-and-research-centers/leonard-lauder-research-center/research-resources/the-modern-art-index-project/bernheim-jeune">the first Van Gogh retrospective</a> at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris. The event brought Van Gogh to the attention of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paul-Cassirer">German dealer Paul Cassirer</a>, who went on to create a market for Vincent’s work in Berlin, supported by the influential art historian <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julius-Meier-Graefe">Julius Meier-Graefe</a>.</p>
<p>By 1914 <a href="https://www.thamesandhudsonusa.com/books/by-appointment-only-cezanne-van-gogh-and-some-secrets-of-art-dealing-hardcover">it was estimated</a> that as many as 120 pictures by Van Gogh were in German collections and his work quickly increased in value.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503847/original/file-20230110-16-1ue118.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Sepia photograph of Jo van Gogh-Bonger. She wears a round pendant at her neck and her hair is tied back." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503847/original/file-20230110-16-1ue118.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503847/original/file-20230110-16-1ue118.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503847/original/file-20230110-16-1ue118.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503847/original/file-20230110-16-1ue118.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503847/original/file-20230110-16-1ue118.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503847/original/file-20230110-16-1ue118.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503847/original/file-20230110-16-1ue118.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jo van Gogh-Bonger (1862-1925).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/about/news-and-press/press-image-bank/images-exhibition-choosing-vincent/portrait-image-jo-van-gogh-bonger">Van Gogh Museum / Vincent van Gogh Foundation</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Britain, meanwhile, the art dealer with the closest links to Van Gogh <a href="https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/discovery/fulldisplay?vid=44UOE_INST:44UOE_VU2&tab=Everything&docid=alma9918126313502466&lang=en&context=L&query=sub,exact,Berenson,%20Bernard,%201865-1959">was Alexander Reid</a>. In 1887 Reid worked alongside Theo at the firm of Boussod & Valadon in Paris and briefly shared an apartment with both Van Gogh brothers.</p>
<p>However, despite his close physical resemblance to the artist (two portraits of Reid by Van Gogh, now in Glasgow and Oklahoma, were originally catalogued as self-portraits), <a href="https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/publications/van-gogh-and-britain-pioneer-collectors">it was not until the early 1920s</a> that he began to exhibit and sell his pictures to <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Impressionism_Scotland.html?id=tYjrAAAAMAAJ">rich industrialists in Glasgow</a> and London. Among the most significant was the Scottish collector <a href="https://19.bbk.ac.uk/article/id/3001/">Elizabeth Workman</a>, the wife of a successful ship owner.</p>
<p>The most important early collector of Van Gogh’s work was another enlightened woman, <a href="https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/helene-kroller-muller/">Helene Kröller-Müller</a>, who – although German by birth – was based in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.</p>
<p>Advised by the Dutch painter and critic <a href="http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2020/05/16/the-art-of-henk-bremmer-1871-1956/">Henk Bremmer</a>, she bought her first work by Van Gogh in 1908. Supported by her industrialist husband Anton (who was initially sceptical of her new-found passion), she <a href="https://www.hatjecantz.de/renoir-monet-gauguin-bilder-einer-fliessenden-welt-8161-1.html">went on to acquire</a> no fewer than 91 paintings and over 180 works on paper.</p>
<p>Along with Cassirer, Bremmer <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25608496">helped to push up the price</a> of Van Gogh’s work. As a result, fakes began to appear in various galleries and exhibitions. The most famous forgery case was that of the dancer-turned-art dealer <a href="http://www.mystudios.com/gallery/forgery/history/forgery-18.html">Otto Wacker</a>, who was brought to trial in Berlin in 1932.</p>
<h2>Van Gogh’s art market goes global</h2>
<p>As the market for Van Gogh’s pictures increased, the importance of establishing the authorship of a painting or drawing became even more crucial.</p>
<p>In the 1980s, with the advent of <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Arts/Forgotten-boom-the-legacy-of-Japan-s-1980s-art-buying-spree2">the Japanese craze for Van Gogh</a>, his work began to fetch world records at auction. In 1987 there was huge public debate around the authenticity of the Sunflowers acquired by the <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/12/16/nazi-loot-van-gogh-sunflowers-german-jewish-banker-heirs-sue-sompo-museum-art">Yasuda Marine Insurance company</a> in 1987 for US$39.9 million. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503848/original/file-20230110-12-4zs8j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A self portrait in mainly blues using a pointillist technique." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503848/original/file-20230110-12-4zs8j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503848/original/file-20230110-12-4zs8j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503848/original/file-20230110-12-4zs8j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503848/original/file-20230110-12-4zs8j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=727&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503848/original/file-20230110-12-4zs8j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503848/original/file-20230110-12-4zs8j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503848/original/file-20230110-12-4zs8j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat by Vincent van Gogh (1887).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0016V1962">Van Gogh Museum / Vincent van Gogh Foundation</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Three years later the Japanese businessman Ryoei Saito paid the record price of US$82.5 million for the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/05/16/825-million-for-van-gogh/82375a1f-da49-4f49-8a15-4695d1ceac83/">Portrait of Doctor Gachet</a>. Most recently this record was smashed in November 2022, when a Van Gogh landscape of Arles from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s collection <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/11/11/a-van-gogh-record-landscape-of-orchard-with-cypresses-soars-to-117m-at-paul-allen-auction">sold for US$117 million</a> to an anonymous bidder.</p>
<p>Today the Van Gogh Museum has the last word when it comes to authenticating the artist’s work. The Yasuda Sunflowers are now believed to be authentic, based on the picture’s provenance, which can be traced back to Jo van Gogh Bonger.</p>
<p>A more recent “discovery” of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/nov/15/newly-discovered-van-gogh-drawings-labelled-imitations-museum">a portfolio of Van Gogh drawings</a> in 2016, however, has not yet been accepted as genuine. But what is it about Van Gogh’s work that remains so compelling to prospective buyers, over 130 years after his death?</p>
<p>Today, as we are encouraged to focus on mental health, his work seems to have <a href="https://www.vangoghmuseumshop.com/en/alle-boeken/198246/all-books/32187/on-the-verge-of-insanity">more relevance</a> than ever. Whatever the reason, and despite <a href="https://v-a-c.org/en/publishing/the-glory-of-van-gogh">the scorn</a> that he endured during his lifetime, the market continues to be seduced – like Boch all those years ago – not only by his tragic personal story, but also by his artistic genius.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197361/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frances Fowle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
An art historian explains how Vincent van Gogh went from an unknown painter to one of the world’s most expensive artists.
Frances Fowle, Personal Chair of Nineteenth-Century Art, History of Art, The University of Edinburgh
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197854
2023-03-22T11:28:09Z
2023-03-22T11:28:09Z
Van Gogh Museum at 50: how galleries are challenging the ‘tortured genius’ narrative
<p>At the time that Vincent van Gogh was creating his acclaimed work, <a href="https://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/starry-night.html">The Starry Night</a>, he was hospitalised at Saint-Paul de Mausole asylum. He painted the vivid night sky from his room without the bars of his window, editing out the institution. Yet, in the case of museums, it is often the institution who edits out the patient.</p>
<p>In collections, objects and stories relating to mental health have largely been presented through a medical model, viewing patients as subjects and silencing their voices. </p>
<p>Where mental health is part of an artist’s story, their creativity may be wrongly credited to their suffering. Often, these narratives sit uncomfortably close to spectacle, an echo of the Victorian freak show in the digital age.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514286/original/file-20230308-26-9i4yw3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>This article is part of our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/vincent-van-gogh-31028">Van Gogh Museum at 50</a> series. These articles mark the 50th anniversary of Amsterdam’s pioneering gallery and explore evolving cultural perceptions of one of the world’s most famous artists.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, museums are grappling with how best to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-wellcome-closed-its-medicine-man-exhibition-and-others-should-follow-suit-196171">expose and address biases</a> and gaps in collections and programming.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en">The Van Gogh Museum</a> first opened 50 years ago. A pioneer of the single artist approach, it formed a keystone of Amsterdam’s tourism strategy.</p>
<p>Outside of the museum, approaches to mental health (although greatly advanced from van Gogh’s time) were still disempowering. Lobotomies – a Nobel Prize-winning invention in the 1940s – had experienced a post-war boom, but public opinion towards them had become distinctly unfavourable by 1973 after the <a href="https://www.glensidemuseum.org.uk/psychiatric-hospital-1861-1994/mental-health-timeline/">high-profile death of a patient</a> a few years before.</p>
<p>Throughout his life, van Gogh experienced poor mental health. His <a href="https://journalbipolardisorders.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40345-020-00196-z">complex symptoms</a> caused episodes of intense psychosis, hallucinations and cognitive dysfunction. During one such episode, he famously cut off part of his ear. He died in 1890, by probable suicide. </p>
<p>Van Gogh’s battle with mental health is well known but our perceptions of his story are often less critically evaluated. This highlights a long history of misconceptions around mental health. Since the time of Aristotle, <a href="https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/are-genius-and-madness-related-contemporary-answers-ancient-question#sthash.nOak4JW7.dpuf">illness and creativity have been thought to be connected</a>. Van Gogh rejected this idea, considering <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/ey-exhibition-van-gogh-and-britain/van-gogh-challenging-myth">“madness an illness like any other”</a>. </p>
<p>The concept of the “tortured genius”, which sees suffering as a necessary part of creativity, is unhelpful yet deeply embedded. Think of the narratives we hold for <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/creativity-mental-illness-health_n_5695887">Kurt Cobain, Sylvia Plath and Robin Williams</a>.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ejsp.1999?saml_referrer">2014 study</a> even discovered that van Gogh’s work was perceived as higher quality by viewers exposed to his mental health story. In promoting suffering over seeking help and recovery, the topic of mental health becomes a spectacle rather than a vehicle for social change.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"967808171925491712"}"></div></p>
<p>“<a href="https://theboar.org/2020/07/artistmentalhealth/">Everybody has their yellow paint</a>” – a meme originally posted on social media site Tumblr – neatly illustrates this point by positioning van Gogh as a “beautiful tortured soul” who ate toxic yellow paint to coat his insides with sunshine. </p>
<p>His potential suicide attempt is reframed as a misunderstood quirk. Yet, as tragic stories of social media-inspired self harm demonstrate, the misinterpretation of mental health issues has real impact.</p>
<h2>Rethinking mental health</h2>
<p>Several institutions, including the Van Gogh Museum, are now working with audiences in order to reevaluate their perspectives on wellbeing.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.museumnext.com/article/wellbeing-with-vincent/">Discussions</a> between the Van Gogh Museum and young people experiencing mental health vulnerability highlighted the opportunity for the museum to normalise mental illness and to encourage people to seek support where needed.</p>
<p>The community of young people suggested progressive ways for the museum to become a safe space for engagement in which people could tell their own stories. </p>
<p>The resulting project, <a href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/about/organisation/inclusion-and-accessibility-policy/open-up-with-vincent">Open Up with Vincent</a>, has created online and onsite activities such as meditation films, material for school pupils and collaborations with healthcare institutions.</p>
<p>A key part of the museum’s findings was that, in having an uncertain diagnosis, van Gogh’s story resonated with young people as it did not probe his struggles through a medical model. Narratives around his art and life could, instead, open dialogue on mental health and support audiences to consider their own relationships with mental health and wellness. </p>
<p>In the UK, the Tate galleries, working with the mental health charity, <a href="https://www.mind.org.uk/">Mind</a>, have challenged existing approaches in order to create a more useful dialogue. Finding that 50% of people experiencing mental health problems noted the shame and isolation as worse than the illness itself, they created a <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/ey-exhibition-van-gogh-and-britain/van-gogh-challenging-myth">more factually accurate portrayal</a> of van Gogh’s mental health through animation. His story becomes a powerful reminder that we should not be defined by our mental health.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dFqAKp6xmLg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The animation that resulted from Tate’s collaboration with the mental health charity, Mind.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As museums develop their institutional perspectives on healthcare from a medical model to a social model, they are evolving into agents of radical change. Co-production with communities has vast potential to develop healthier societies by exploring the intersections of creativity and wellbeing.</p>
<p>The Van Gogh Museum is celebrating its 50th year by “treating audiences” to a “splendid party” and “special activities”, in a nod to the Dutch tradition of being generous to others on your birthday. However, particularly in the context of continued funding crises, we need to be mindful that culture is more than just a “treat.” It is an essential tool in tackling the mental health crisis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197854/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlie Pratley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Museums have pushed the narrative of Vincent van Gogh as a ‘tortured genius’ for decades, but in its 50th year the Van Gogh Museum is questioning this approach.
Charlie Pratley, Senior Lecturer in Museum Studies, Nottingham Trent University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197420
2023-03-16T19:12:12Z
2023-03-16T19:12:12Z
Friday essay: a lament for the lost art of letter-writing – a radical art form reflecting ‘the full catastrophe of life’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514610/original/file-20230310-24-eiamcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5745%2C3359&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Suzy Hazelwood/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Letters did not count [as writing]. A woman might write letters while sitting by her father’s sick-bed. She could write them by the fire while the men talked without disturbing them. The strange thing is, I thought, turning over the pages of Dorothy’s letters, what a gift that untaught and solitary girl had for the framing of a sentence, for the fashioning of a scene. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>— Virginia Woolf, <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/a-room-of-ones-own-9780241436288">A Room of One’s Own</a> </p>
<p>Last year I went to the funeral of a friend with whom I shared a house in Melbourne in the early 1990s. While I and my other housemates went on to the full array of box-ticking life experiences – children, careers, relationships, houses – our friend was diagnosed with an aggressive form of <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-multiple-sclerosis-32662">multiple sclerosis</a> in her early twenties. When she died, we had not heard her voice for many years.</p>
<p>Of all the eulogies at her funeral, the most arresting was a letter she’d written at 23, read aloud by a former housemate, Delia. Our friend had been travelling at the time; negotiating a fledgling relationship, digesting the reality of her diagnosis, preparing for the suddenly precarious unfolding of her life. </p>
<p>She hadn’t spoken for so long but here in this letter, this imprint of her voice on paper, she sprang suddenly into life. Funny, irreverent, honest, scared: we could hear her. The occasion was sad; but the letter was joyful. </p>
<p>I had forgotten what a powerful time capsule a letter could be.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/post-apocalypse-the-end-of-daily-letter-deliveries-is-in-sight-201094">Post apocalypse: the end of daily letter deliveries is in sight</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>Gen X-ers occupy a distinctly precious cultural position – straddling the analogue past of letter writing and the hyper-digital present of TikTok and Instagram. One of my earliest school memories is of learning how to transcribe an address onto an envelope in the form required by post offices (carefully indented at every line, return address on the back). It seems almost archaic now. </p>
<p>We may not have been “the last generation of devoted letter writers” – that title goes to our parents’ or grandparents’ generation – but letter-writing was still a necessary, carefully taught skill when we were growing up. </p>
<p>It was the normal way to communicate with grandparents, international pen-pals, and school friends who had moved to the country. We all sat down at school camp on the first night and wrote our parents a letter, Camp Granada style, supervised by prowling teachers who made sure we gave our parents a worthy account.</p>
<p>I remember too how important it was, as a young adult in the world of pre-internet travel, to land in a far-flung place, track down the <a href="https://www.travellerspoint.com/forum.cfm?thread=4494">Poste Restante</a> and find miraculously waiting for you – as though your arrival was predestined – a handful of pale blue aerograms, enscripted with miniscule, space-saving writing. Letters from home. </p>
<p>In momentary deferral to the anti-hoarding gods, I recently threw out a tranche of these aerograms, sent to me when I travelled India as a 19-year-old. I not only curse myself when I think of this now, but I feel an actual pain in my chest. What insights have I lost into my former self, my family and my friends as a result?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515056/original/file-20230314-2601-qqk3ao.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young woman looking at camera, river and buildings behind her" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515056/original/file-20230314-2601-qqk3ao.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515056/original/file-20230314-2601-qqk3ao.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515056/original/file-20230314-2601-qqk3ao.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515056/original/file-20230314-2601-qqk3ao.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515056/original/file-20230314-2601-qqk3ao.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515056/original/file-20230314-2601-qqk3ao.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515056/original/file-20230314-2601-qqk3ao.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author in India, aged 19 – when letters from home were miraculous and important arrivals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The human condition</h2>
<p>The disappearance of letter-writing from Western cultural life is such a recent phenomenon that I don’t dare proclaim its death. From Abelard and Heloise’s <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-letters-of-abelard-and-heloise-9780140448993">12th-century love missives</a>, dense with biblical references but no less dense with longing, to <a href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/art-and-stories/stories/van-goghs-letters">the letters</a> of Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo, it’s hard to imagine how we might have made sense of the human condition without the insights gleaned from letters.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515059/original/file-20230314-2080-scd0kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A letter with writing and a sketch of a house" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515059/original/file-20230314-2080-scd0kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515059/original/file-20230314-2080-scd0kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515059/original/file-20230314-2080-scd0kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515059/original/file-20230314-2080-scd0kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515059/original/file-20230314-2080-scd0kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515059/original/file-20230314-2080-scd0kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515059/original/file-20230314-2080-scd0kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Van Gogh’s letters to his brother Theo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons/Van Gogh Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What would we know of the interior worlds of artists and writers, scientists and politicians, sisters and friends and lovers? What would we know about life itself? Or, as importantly, about <em>how to live</em>? In the first century AD, Seneca articulated his philosophy of <a href="https://theconversation.com/stoicism-5-0-the-unlikely-21st-century-reboot-of-an-ancient-philosophy-80986">stoicism</a> via a series of 124 “<a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius">moral letters</a>” to his young friend Lucilius. </p>
<p>These letters are only nominally a private correspondence between two men; in fact, they were written for a much larger readership that might benefit from Seneca’s solutions to the moral dilemmas of living in the world. </p>
<p>Even if one side of the conversation (Lucilius’s) remained unheard, the letter, as a form, lent a sense of reciprocity and intimacy to Seneca’s words – it enabled him to speak to many as though he were speaking to one. With titles such as “On saving time”, “On old age and death”, “On the relativity of fame”, “On care of health and peace of mind”, Seneca’s letters continue to resonate 2,000 years later. </p>
<p>Rainer Maria Rilke’s ten <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/letters-to-a-young-poet-9780241252055">Letters to a Young Poet</a>, written in 1903-08 and published posthumously in 1929, provided creative guidance to his young recipient, a Czech poet and military student. These letters are famous for Rilke’s inordinately gentle manner, his tenderness and warmth. </p>
<p>Yet it seems that, in breathing a philosophy of art and life into the ear of his young admirer, Rilke also breathes it affirmingly into himself, and into the generations privy to the correspondence since. I noticed traces of his philosophy of creativity – which emphasises patience and attentiveness to the small things of life – in a 1961 letter from Patrick White to Thea Astley I recently read:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Read, think & listen to silence, & shell the peas … concentrating on the work in hand until you know what it is to be a pea — and drudge at the school, & sleep with your husband & bring up your child. That is what I mean when I say “living” …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unlike the essay or the novel, letters facilitate a kind of collapsing of low and high, profound and profane, the life of domesticity and the life of the spirit. They are not master accounts of ourselves, with all the incidentals written out.</p>
<p>Writer Maria Popova, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/09/floating-worlds-edward-goreys-never-before-seen-letters/245155/">commenting on</a> the mid-century correspondence of illustrator <a href="https://www.edwardgoreyhouse.org/">Edward Gorey</a> and author <a href="https://library.sdsu.edu/scua/sdsu-oral-histories/neumeyer">Peter F. Neumeyer</a>, says the two men wrote to each other of everything “from metaphysics to pancake recipes”. </p>
<p>This democratic levelling of subject matter is perhaps nowhere more evident than in letters, where hierarchies of value don’t prevail as they do in more authoritatively literary forms: the traditional novel, for instance, in which everything must gear toward thematic and narrative resolution. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515108/original/file-20230314-166-o0riwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515108/original/file-20230314-166-o0riwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515108/original/file-20230314-166-o0riwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515108/original/file-20230314-166-o0riwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515108/original/file-20230314-166-o0riwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515108/original/file-20230314-166-o0riwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515108/original/file-20230314-166-o0riwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515108/original/file-20230314-166-o0riwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edward Gorey and collaborator Peter F. Nuemeyer wrote to each other of ‘everything from metaphysics to pancake recipes’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey and Peter F. Neumeyer</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Letting the real world in</h2>
<p>Megan O’Grady, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/t-magazine/literary-letter-collections.html">in the New York Times</a>, has described letters as “leaky” in the way they allow a seepage of the real world to occur: “the baby wakes from the nap and cries; the air-raid siren sounds; the social mores and psychodynamics of other eras filter in”. In correspondence, even the rhetorical devices of transition, the elegant segues that smooth a jagged change of subject, are largely dispensed with. </p>
<p>No one, writing a letter, agonises over the wording of a sentence that links two paragraphs. A trail of unexplained ellipses has a particular function in a letter – to break a chain of thought, to attest to bodily movement in temporal space: a kettle being put on, a doorbell answered, a nappy changed. </p>
<p>My friend Delia, reading over letters from her friends in the early 1990s when she was a student in America, said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was funny reading these letters back. Sometimes they would be written over days, or even weeks, they’d stop and start and stop again: “Sorry, got distracted with something. Anyway …” Or be continually updated: “Well, I finally got a phone call from X, you won’t believe what happened …” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>They were provisional, real-time, patched-together accounts of life as we lived it, as it occurred, on the spot. An unspooling of self onto the page in real time.</p>
<p>Or selves perhaps; each letter, each recipient, facilitating an adjustment of the self, a tweak: there’s the correspondent we make laugh, the correspondent we confide in, the correspondent to whom we offer advice and comfort. Like a diary, a letter can function as a “chronicle of [one’s] hours and days”, but because it is, in essence, a two-way communication – an ongoing, unfinished conversation – a letter invokes a relationship so it needs to be sensitive to the reader in ways a diary need not. </p>
<p>It needs to configure itself for entertainment value. It’s one of the few writing forms that allows the mind of the writer to roam freely, independently, and yet actively connect with an attentive, and presumably sympathetic, reader: a <em>known</em> reader. </p>
<p>The materiality of letters sets them apart from today’s electronic equivalents. Letters are disarmingly tangible when we chance upon them in a forgotten box or tin or bundle: we might have forgotten them, but they didn’t cease to exist. They offer curious subtexts too, not least to do with the presence of the human hand on paper. </p>
<h2>A different kind of utterance</h2>
<p>I have in my possession pages of my late grandmother’s “scribble” – a self-deprecating term she used (for her handwriting or for the thoughts her letters contained? I was never sure which). </p>
<p>Her backwards-scooping scrawl carries with it her personality somehow – occasionally, I see an echo of it in my own handwriting, a certain soft flourish in an “h” or an “n”. I remember the pale blue pages on which her letters were written, and my habit of placing a heavy-ruled piece of paper beneath my own when I wrote back to her, to ensure my lines were straight. </p>
<p>Particularly precious in my family is a letter written to my father as a little boy by his own father, stationed on an air base in New Guinea in 1943. The letter, on tiny yellow paper, is written in flawless copperplate – a skill my grandfather was particularly proud of, having left school at 12 – and the front of the envelope is illustrated with an image of Ginger Meggs, hand-drawn in coloured ink. </p>
<p>Returning after the war, my grandfather was a difficult, traumatised man, but in his letter there’s a glimpse of the loving young father and husband he was before: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dear Barry</p>
<p>Just a few lines from your Daddy hoping it finds you well; and I also trust that your little yacht arrived alright; and I do hope it sails well for it has really big sails though I think you shall be able to manage it alright after Mum has fixed it all up for you […] Now Barry I guess you are wondering when I shall be home, well I really thought that I would be home for Xmas but now it looks like it shall be early in the new year so I am hoping I get back in time for your birthday for if I do, we shall sure have a birthday party, won’t we, with just you and Leslie and Mumie and me …“</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the last years of my own father’s life, this tiny hand-inked letter had pride of place in a glass display case in his residential care unit: a beautiful relic, the ephemeral trapped on paper. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515063/original/file-20230314-16-829hle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515063/original/file-20230314-16-829hle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515063/original/file-20230314-16-829hle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515063/original/file-20230314-16-829hle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515063/original/file-20230314-16-829hle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515063/original/file-20230314-16-829hle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515063/original/file-20230314-16-829hle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515063/original/file-20230314-16-829hle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This letter, sent to the author’s father by his father, from a New Guinea air base, is ‘particularly precious’ in her family.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It reminds me of a similarly gentle, loving letter written by John Steinbeck to his son in 1958, upon his son’s announcement that he had fallen in love:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dear Thom:</p>
<p>First – if you are in love – that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.</p>
<p>Second – There are several kinds of love […] The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Did Steinbeck speak as honestly and tenderly to his son in person? Perhaps, I don’t know. But it’s possible that letters allowed a different kind of utterance for "strong, silent” men of past generations: a benevolent “father-tongue” (lower case) which enabled them to shed, if momentarily, the practised hardness of masculinity. </p>
<p>I know that my grandfather’s letter contains a grace and sweetness that was not present in person. In person, his expression of love was to teach my father how to box. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515064/original/file-20230314-2366-7wgker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a letter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515064/original/file-20230314-2366-7wgker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515064/original/file-20230314-2366-7wgker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515064/original/file-20230314-2366-7wgker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515064/original/file-20230314-2366-7wgker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515064/original/file-20230314-2366-7wgker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515064/original/file-20230314-2366-7wgker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515064/original/file-20230314-2366-7wgker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author’s grandfather’s letter contains ‘a grace and sweetness that was not present in person’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hold-the-post-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-dead-letter-38581">Hold the post: there's no such thing as a dead letter</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Famous love letters</h2>
<p>Love letters, of course, occupy a place of their own within the “genre”, if it can be called a genre. The 5,000 or so <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/07/21/138467808/stieglitz-and-okeeffe-their-love-and-life-in-letters">letters between Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Steiglitz</a>, penned across 30 years, provide a window onto the mutual creative inspiration that existed between the two artists, but also include searing love letters that testify to an enduring sensuality. </p>
<p>“Dearest,” writes Georgia: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>— my body is simply crazy with wanting you – If you don’t come tomorrow – I don’t see how I can wait for you – I wonder if your body wants mine the way mine wants yours – the kisses – the hotness – the wetness – all melting together – the being held so tight that it hurts – the strangle and the struggle.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515416/original/file-20230315-28-i6oy82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515416/original/file-20230315-28-i6oy82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515416/original/file-20230315-28-i6oy82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515416/original/file-20230315-28-i6oy82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515416/original/file-20230315-28-i6oy82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515416/original/file-20230315-28-i6oy82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515416/original/file-20230315-28-i6oy82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515416/original/file-20230315-28-i6oy82.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Georgia O'Keeffe photographed by Alfred Stieglitz in 1918.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On a voyeuristic level, the love letters of the famous gratify our curiosity – what went on between these two giants of the screen/literary world/art scene? Were they (are they?) like us in their lusts and their pettinesses? Often, yes, they <em>are</em> like us – we’re reassured by their broken promises and bickerings and insecurities. </p>
<p>They say things they shouldn’t, embarrassing things, things they later regret. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-tug-of-the-tale-steven-carroll-reimagines-the-life-and-times-of-t-s-eliot-and-his-first-wife-vivienne-177619">T.S. Eliot</a> later disavowed <a href="https://tseliot.com/the-eliot-hale-letters">his fervent love letters</a> to American speech and drama teacher Emily Hale – they “were the letters of an hallucinated man,” he said. Nevertheless, these letters have an ardour, a heart-on-the-sleeve earnestness, that reveals a different side to the cool modernist poet, a side that was warm-blooded, ruled by the heart, even, possibly, vulnerable.</p>
<p>Letters are immediate; we write them from inside the moment, and so the immediate, the moment, becomes the truth. Their vigour, and their value, lies in this unedited, uneditable quality: they document us, trap fleeting moments in glass. We might even say things that bare our souls. “I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia,” wrote Vita Sackville-West famously to Virginia Woolf in one such moment in 1926. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515112/original/file-20230314-30-sz23ty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a postmarked letter addressed to Miss Emily Hale" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515112/original/file-20230314-30-sz23ty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515112/original/file-20230314-30-sz23ty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515112/original/file-20230314-30-sz23ty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515112/original/file-20230314-30-sz23ty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515112/original/file-20230314-30-sz23ty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515112/original/file-20230314-30-sz23ty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515112/original/file-20230314-30-sz23ty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Poet T.S. Eliot later disavowed his love letters to Emily Hale as the work ‘of an hallucinated man’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ashley Gamarello, Princeton University Library</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of the funniest/“dirtiest” letters on the public record are James Joyce’s <a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/02/02/james-joyces-love-letters-dirty-little-fuckbird/">letters to his wife Nora Barnacle</a>, in which he joyously catalogues her repertoire of farts: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>big fat fellows, long windy ones, quick little merry cracks and a lot of tiny little naughty farties ending in a long gush from your hole … I think I would know Nora’s fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The publication of the letters in 1975 upset Joyce’s grandson, but the correspondence reveals a healthy mutual sexual relationship, free of any false social pieties and, certainly, of embarrassment. </p>
<p>The love letters of famous writers have a pith and poetry the rest of us might not be equal to, but even the simplest love letters, if they’re heartfelt, speak of who we are, or once were, and how we affected other people. They are testament to the risks we take to express deep and difficult feelings; the things we might not have been able to say in the flesh.</p>
<p>My first boyfriend says he wrote me a love letter when we were 16 and I sent it back to him with the spelling corrected in red pen. I can’t remember the spirit with which I embarked on this particular revision, but it’s retrospectively both very funny and an insight into my own priggishness. Nor can I imagine making such amendments now using tracked changes – somehow I think it would be less funny and more tragic. </p>
<p>I have in my possession other love letters from the pre-internet age – not many, a few. They embarrassed me, mainly, at the time, but I’m glad I’ve kept them – they are charged with a force that cuts through time, and connects me with myself as a younger, if more callous, person.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/weaponised-irony-after-fictionalising-elizabeth-macarthurs-life-kate-grenville-edits-her-letters-180335">'Weaponised irony': after fictionalising Elizabeth Macarthur's life, Kate Grenville edits her letters</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Email and autocorrect</h2>
<p>And while famous love letters of the past are collected, collated and curated for public consumption, I’m not sure a 21st-century romantic email correspondence will have the same longevity. For one thing, emails are less spontaneous: if only because they are infinitely revisable, deletable – as well as easily forwardable (accidentally or otherwise). </p>
<p>They don’t contain the mark of the person, the pecularities of handwriting or, yes, spelling mistakes – autocorrect puts out these interesting little fires. Writes O’Grady: “It’s hard to imagine that in 50 years we’ll be picking up The Collected Emails of Zadie Smith.” </p>
<p>Email won’t ever be a replacement for the unfolding, from a wadded envelope, of several pages of lovingly tended text. For me, at least. I use email for collegiate communications, friendly transactions, social to-ings and fro-ings. While it might provide the last vestige of formality in an increasingly informal communications world, email remains an inadequate substitute for letters. </p>
<p>Delayed gratification – part of the frisson of a traditional correspondence – is a bad portent when it comes to emails. It’s easy to interpret even the briefest email silence as unwillingness or neglect on the part of the recipient. O’Grady writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Email – already an old-fashioned form – isn’t really the electronic replacement of the letter but a different mode of communication entirely: fleeter, tactical, somehow both more and less disposable. It is unwise to commit too much of oneself to electronic code, which lives on in some ether or another, unflung into the fireplace.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Text messages are semiotically interesting in the way they codify language and narrative, but their idiom is brevity. You can flirt in a series of text messages, you can also argue, but you can’t reflect the way you might in a letter; it’s easy to send a platitude or establish a rapport in a text, not so easy to tease out a philosophy.</p>
<p>Letter-writing is a commitment of time and an offering of trust, both an indulgence and an act of generosity. It must trust that what is being related will be accepted. It must assume that its confidences will be honoured.</p>
<h2>‘The stuff of life’</h2>
<p>As a writer looking for a literary device with which to capture the voice of a troubled female poet in 1960s Melbourne, first-person narrative didn’t work. I tried and got nowhere. It couldn’t satisfactorily make visible the ruptures and randomness of my character’s life, its trivial details and entertaining side-notes: the nappies she had to run off and attend to; the soggy egg cartons glimpsed dishearteningly through a window; the clothesline she feared being garrotted by. </p>
<p><em>If it’s not doing something to further the narrative</em>, goes the traditional novel-writing wisdom, <em>cut it out</em>. But I wanted to put in the things that didn’t further the narrative: the ephemeral things, apparently unimportant, that are actually the stuff of life. </p>
<p>Letter-writing allows this <em>stuff</em> to be present. Perhaps it’s the only traditional writing form that does, and it gave me a credible reason for putting the trivial, the small, the fleeting into my story. And when I did, to my surprise, my character came to life: she became spontaneous and real and began to speak in a language and voice that seemed authentic.</p>
<p>In her wonderful 1988 essay about writing and motherhood, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/22/books/the-hand-that-rocks-the-cradle-writes-the-book.html">The Fisherwoman’s Daughter</a>, Ursula Le Guin used the term “mother tongue” to describe an “authentic” women’s language. The mother tongue, she says, speaks with intimacy, proximity, connectivity; it’s the voice with which we talk to a neighbour over the fence, or to our children when they come home late, or to our partners when it’s their turn to take out the bins, or our friends when we’re trying to make them laugh over a drink. </p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/469310">Its power</a> is not in dividing but in binding … We all know it by heart. John have you got your umbrella I think it’s going to rain. Can you come play with me? If I told you once I told you a hundred times … O what am I going to do? … Pass the soy sauce please. Oh, shit … You look like what the cat dragged in …</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515422/original/file-20230315-28-sf4se8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman holding a cup of tea." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515422/original/file-20230315-28-sf4se8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515422/original/file-20230315-28-sf4se8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515422/original/file-20230315-28-sf4se8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515422/original/file-20230315-28-sf4se8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515422/original/file-20230315-28-sf4se8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515422/original/file-20230315-28-sf4se8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515422/original/file-20230315-28-sf4se8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ursula Le Guin in 2001.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Benjamin Brink/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In its use of the mother tongue, correspondence actually corresponds with the ways we interact with people in our lives, as well as with the spontaneities of speech itself. It doesn’t pretend the writer is not a real person, speaking in an authoritative void, like an oracle, to untethered, disembodied others. It allows the full catastrophe of life to be present and visible. </p>
<p>Researching the letters of women poets in preparation for working on <a href="https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=1781">my novel</a>, I realised letter-writing has always been socially acceptable for women in ways the “master” forms of literary production – the novel, the poem – haven’t been. So long as they were literate, women have always written letters – as an essential form of communication and self-expression, but also because writing letters didn’t disturb the status quo or conflict with domestic or mothering responsibilities. </p>
<p>A woman didn’t need to consciously conceive of herself as a “writer” in order to be an avid letter-writer. And a woman didn’t need a “room of her own” in order to write her letters; she could write them among the potato peels and bills and children’s laundry. Quietly, (apparently) benignly, women have for centuries been able to refine and experiment with their writing practice under the guise of merely “writing a letter”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515111/original/file-20230314-20-ui8che.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515111/original/file-20230314-20-ui8che.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515111/original/file-20230314-20-ui8che.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515111/original/file-20230314-20-ui8che.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515111/original/file-20230314-20-ui8che.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515111/original/file-20230314-20-ui8che.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=670&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515111/original/file-20230314-20-ui8che.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=670&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515111/original/file-20230314-20-ui8che.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=670&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman didn’t need to think of herself as ‘a writer’ to write letters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cottonbro Studio/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So perhaps letter-writing has functioned as a kind of ruse or subterfuge for women: a way of writing without seeming to have “unseemly” writerly ambitions. I think of my grandmother’s characterisation of her letters as “scribble”. </p>
<p>It was not the done thing for a woman of her generation to publicise her accomplishments, but I knew <em>she knew</em> she was a good writer, with lovely handwriting, and a gentle and responsive style. Calling her writing “scribble”, I realised, was a way of repudiating the criticism of thinking she had something to say, but getting on with the job of saying it nevertheless. </p>
<p>As I wrote my character’s letters to her sister, I became more and more convinced that letter-writing has functioned as a radical, maybe even revolutionary, writing form for women. This is because, on the one hand, it was considered so socially unthreatening that it went under the radar, and, on the other, because it allowed the small daily realities of women’s lives to be made visible. </p>
<p>It could be written from within the midst of their lives – not separate, not in a garret room or writer’s hut — but right there, on the kitchen table amongst the scraps and the bills and the children’s toys. </p>
<p>Gregory Kratzmann, editor of Australian poet Gwen Harwood’s voluminous correspondence, says Harwood wrote her correspondence in precisely this way: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>She wrote letters quickly and with great facility, often when she was surrounded by domestic activity […] sometimes three or more long letters in the same day […] the activity of writing was an essential part of living […]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The prolific 19th-century novelist Margaret Oliphant used this same “kitchen-table” approach to write her novels – and there were nearly one hundred of them. Far from imperilling her progress, she felt that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>her writing profited, from the difficult, obscure, chancy connection between the art work and emotional/manual/managerial complex of skills and tasks called “housework,” and that to sever that connection would put the writing itself at risk, would make it, in her word, unnatural.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If letter-writing can tolerate interruption, distraction, diversion, it stands to reason that novel writing can too. And poetry writing. And even philosophical treatise writing. Perhaps being interrupted is not so terrible nor so damaging to artistic creation as we have always thought. Who says that the uninterrupted thought is better than the interrupted one?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gwen-harwood-was-one-of-australias-finest-poets-she-was-also-one-of-the-most-subversive-183637">Gwen Harwood was one of Australia's finest poets – she was also one of the most subversive</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>‘The framing of a sentence’</h2>
<p>I have never had an inviolate writing space of my own. Everything I have written has been interrupted constantly by children and domestic demands. I stop to remedy problems; attend to outbursts of screaming; acquire and prepare drawing materials; find lost books; answer spelling enquiries; listen to an imaginative narrative just written; lace on rollerblades; deal with insistent lamentations that “There’s nothing to eat”. </p>
<p>My writing space has been fundamentally accessible to my children: they remove pens and papers and post-it notes, use my desk as a place to apply nail-polish, leave tell-tale trails of crumbs and rings from glasses. Yes, it’s annoying. Does it make my writing worse? No. Sometimes it makes it better.</p>
<p>Writing my character, contemplating all this, I thought – dare I say it? – that perhaps Virginia Woolf was wrong. Perhaps “a room of one’s own” has never been necessary to the writing of prose. Perhaps the seeds of a different kind of writing practice, one that served women’s realities and responsibilities better, can be glimpsed in the practice of letter writing. </p>
<p>Correspondence has always enabled women to become caught up, immersed, in the moment of the work, yet remain equally available and connected to life around them. </p>
<p>Thus it deserves our attention, even as it fades from view as a writing practice. To return to Virginia Woolf’s silently observed letter-writing girl at the beginning of this essay: “[W]hat a gift that untaught and solitary girl had for the framing of a sentence, for the fashioning of a scene.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197420/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edwina Preston received funding from the Australia Council for her latest published novel.</span></em></p>
Edwina Preston pays tribute to the humble letter: from literary love letters to philosophical lessons to cherished family heirlooms. Letters impart lessons, reveal character – and are a form of art.
Edwina Preston, PhD Candidate, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/155963
2021-03-09T04:57:03Z
2021-03-09T04:57:03Z
Botticelli to Van Gogh: from luminous, lyrical beauty to the spoils of empire
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388424/original/file-20210309-16-vsabna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C0%2C2380%2C2962&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vincent van Gogh. Sunflowers. 1888. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The National Gallery, London</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery, London, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra</em></p>
<p>In London, Covid-19 has closed the British National Gallery. Meanwhile in Canberra, Australia’s National Gallery has opened its doors to <a href="https://nga.gov.au/masterpieces/">an elegant selection of works from Britain’s collection</a>. The two events are not connected, but they do signal how times have changed.</p>
<p>Since 1963, when the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/remembering-that-time-in-1963-when-the-mona-lisa-went-on-a-us-road-trip/2018/04/02/e7929674-2881-11e8-bc72-077aa4dab9ef_story.html">Mona Lisa</a> was sent to Washington, asset rich but income poor art museums have relished the combination of kudos and cash that can come with a international tour of collection highlights. Some exhibitions originate when the home institution is closed for redevelopment, others are finely honed exercises in art diplomacy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388396/original/file-20210309-23-1sw5g9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388396/original/file-20210309-23-1sw5g9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388396/original/file-20210309-23-1sw5g9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388396/original/file-20210309-23-1sw5g9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388396/original/file-20210309-23-1sw5g9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388396/original/file-20210309-23-1sw5g9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388396/original/file-20210309-23-1sw5g9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388396/original/file-20210309-23-1sw5g9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sandro Botticelli. Four scenes from the Early Life of Saint Zenobius. c. 1500.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The National Gallery, London. Mond Bequest, 1924.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1975, New York’s Museum of Modern Art sent <a href="https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-3691">Manet to Matisse</a> to Australia, an exhibition organised following the election of the Whitlam government. Visitors queued for hours to see that abundance of treasure from the USA. <a href="https://nga.gov.au/masterpieces/">Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery, London</a> is the result of a similar diplomatic imperative. This time Japan is the target, and Australia is the fringe beneficiary. </p>
<p>For many years the British government resisted requests for the UK’s National Gallery to tour its collection, one of the greatest in the world. Cultural diplomacy and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics — where the exhibition was headed — led to a policy change. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388390/original/file-20210309-14-16tjjk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388390/original/file-20210309-14-16tjjk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388390/original/file-20210309-14-16tjjk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388390/original/file-20210309-14-16tjjk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388390/original/file-20210309-14-16tjjk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388390/original/file-20210309-14-16tjjk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388390/original/file-20210309-14-16tjjk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388390/original/file-20210309-14-16tjjk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joseph Mallord William Turner. Ulysses deriding Polyphemus – Homer’s Odyssey. 1829.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The National Gallery, London. Turner Bequest, 1856.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Because of the importance of the Olympics, the exhibition was able to include Vincent van Gogh’s <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/vincent-van-gogh-sunflowers">Sunflowers</a>, a work so luminous in its pure gold yellows that no colour reproduction can ever do it justice, as well as Monet’s <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/claude-monet-the-water-lily-pond">The Water-lily Pond</a> of 1899, one of his most lyrically beautiful paintings. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-an-unforgettable-multi-sensory-experience-have-to-do-with-vincent-van-gogh-146559">What does an 'unforgettable, multi-sensory experience' have to do with Vincent van Gogh?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The British gallery’s director, Dr Gabriele Finaldi, saw this exhibition as one that would both show the range of the collection, and create a narrative about the impact of Britain on western culture. </p>
<p>The economics of touring art meant it was necessary to offer the exhibition to another venue outside of Japan. Canberra took the slot but the arrival of Covid in early 2020 changed all plans. The Olympics were postponed. The exhibition arrived in Tokyo just before all was locked down. </p>
<p>It eventually opened in June, without the Olympics but to a very appreciative audience. One visitor wrote: “What a comfort. What a joy! I could almost cry.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388402/original/file-20210309-17-16uhed5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388402/original/file-20210309-17-16uhed5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388402/original/file-20210309-17-16uhed5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388402/original/file-20210309-17-16uhed5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388402/original/file-20210309-17-16uhed5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388402/original/file-20210309-17-16uhed5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388402/original/file-20210309-17-16uhed5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388402/original/file-20210309-17-16uhed5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jacopo Tintoretto. The Origin of the Milky Way. c. 1575.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The National Gallery, London.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The NGA was able to use the extra time to renovate its temporary exhibitions wing, shaping it to suit the narrative of the exhibition, which Finaldi describes as “the history of picture-making in Western Europe”. </p>
<p>While that assessment is most accurately described as hyperbole (there are, for instance, no works by women) there is a chronological progression and each room is devoted to a different aspect of western art and a different time frame.</p>
<h2>Surprising pleasures</h2>
<p>There are some surprising pleasures. Paolo Uccello is not represented by one of his standard set-piece <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/paolo-uccello-the-battle-of-san-romano">battles on horseback</a>, but <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/paolo-uccello-saint-george-and-the-dragon">St George and the Dragon</a> with its saint on horseback. A reproduction of this painting, with its evocation of a magical world, led me to fall in love with art when I was a child. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388392/original/file-20210309-18-1j2o617.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388392/original/file-20210309-18-1j2o617.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388392/original/file-20210309-18-1j2o617.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388392/original/file-20210309-18-1j2o617.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388392/original/file-20210309-18-1j2o617.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388392/original/file-20210309-18-1j2o617.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388392/original/file-20210309-18-1j2o617.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388392/original/file-20210309-18-1j2o617.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paolo Uccello. Saint George and the dragon. c. 1470.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The National Gallery, London.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Botticelli, <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/sandro-botticelli-four-scenes-from-the-early-life-of-saint-zenobius">Four scenes from the Early Life of Saint Zenobius</a>, comes from the later years of the artist’s life, after he became a disciple of <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399301/obo-9780195399301-0042.xml">Savonarola</a> and renounced the life of the flesh.</p>
<p>Visitors to London see rooms crowded with Dutch art, a reflection of the common Protestant tradition of the two countries. This exhibition however only shows eight paintings from 17th century Holland, sparsely hung in one great room to give visitors a chance to properly focus on Rembrandt’s masterpiece, <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/rembrandt-self-portrait-at-the-age-of-34">Self Portrait at the Age of 34</a>.</p>
<p>It also includes the work I would most like to steal, Vermeer’s A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal. As with all of Vermeer’s paintings each shape, tone and colour works in perfect harmony. Every detail — from the painting hanging in the background to the young musician’s dress — implies a narrative we yearn to know. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388389/original/file-20210309-18-13rhw7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388389/original/file-20210309-18-13rhw7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388389/original/file-20210309-18-13rhw7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388389/original/file-20210309-18-13rhw7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388389/original/file-20210309-18-13rhw7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388389/original/file-20210309-18-13rhw7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388389/original/file-20210309-18-13rhw7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388389/original/file-20210309-18-13rhw7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Johannes Vermeer. A Young Woman seated at a Virginal. c. 1670–72.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The National Gallery, London. Salting Bequest, 1910.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The much vaunted English landscape tradition owes a great deal to the Dutch, but the exhibition includes a truly original Turner and also that master of natural beauty, John Constable. His <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/john-constable-cenotaph-to-the-memory-of-sir-joshua-reynolds">Cenotaph to the Memory of Joshua Reynolds</a>, all dappled light with a deer, is devised by the artist to place himself within Reynolds’ academic fold.</p>
<p>Spain was “discovered” by the English after the defeat of Napoleon, which is perhaps why the room devoted to it includes a decidedly restrained portrait of Wellington by Goya.</p>
<p>Velázquez’s beautifully realised Kitchen Scene in the house of Martha and Mary, is a reminder of this artist’s intelligent composition as much as his brilliant execution, while El Greco’s Christ Driving the Traders from the Temple has all the passion of the Counter-Reformation. </p>
<p>While the exhibition culminates with a celebration of 19th century modernists — Van Gogh, Cézanne, Monet, Degas, Renoir — whose works glow like jewels on the muted walls, its core is elsewhere. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388400/original/file-20210309-23-1l1wp3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388400/original/file-20210309-23-1l1wp3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388400/original/file-20210309-23-1l1wp3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388400/original/file-20210309-23-1l1wp3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388400/original/file-20210309-23-1l1wp3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388400/original/file-20210309-23-1l1wp3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388400/original/file-20210309-23-1l1wp3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388400/original/file-20210309-23-1l1wp3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paul Cézanne. Hillside in Provence. c. 1890–92. © The National Gallery, London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The National Gallery, London.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The busiest room at the NGA show consists of 17th and 18th century British portraits, a parade of aristocrats painted by Van Dyke, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Lawrence et al. </p>
<p>They represent the powerful empire that sent its young on Grand Tours of Europe to return with plunder to fill their country houses. Centuries later these works, often bequeathed in lieu of death duties, entered the national collection. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388397/original/file-20210309-21-z4o9eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388397/original/file-20210309-21-z4o9eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388397/original/file-20210309-21-z4o9eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388397/original/file-20210309-21-z4o9eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388397/original/file-20210309-21-z4o9eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388397/original/file-20210309-21-z4o9eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388397/original/file-20210309-21-z4o9eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388397/original/file-20210309-21-z4o9eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Installation view: Anthony van Dyck. Lady Elizabeth Thimbelby and her Sister. c. 1635.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The National Gallery, London.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Covid-19 has reshaped the way we see the world. After some decades of cheap international travel, access to distant places is again exotically unobtainable. Even when the widespread use of vaccines open up the skies again, people are likely to proceed with caution and costs are predicted to be out of reach for many. </p>
<p>Travelling exhibitions may once again be the only way most people will be able to access great art from outside their country of origin.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388403/original/file-20210309-18-16m0ka5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388403/original/file-20210309-18-16m0ka5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388403/original/file-20210309-18-16m0ka5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388403/original/file-20210309-18-16m0ka5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388403/original/file-20210309-18-16m0ka5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388403/original/file-20210309-18-16m0ka5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388403/original/file-20210309-18-16m0ka5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388403/original/file-20210309-18-16m0ka5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paul Gauguin. A Vase of Flowers. 1896. © The National Gallery, London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The National Gallery, London.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps the success of this small selection of masterpieces from London, as well as the economic realities of Brexit, may persuade the British Government to permit more art to travel. </p>
<p>Perhaps next time we could see Seurat’s <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/georges-seurat-bathers-at-asnieres">Bathers at Asnières</a>, Gainsborough’s <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/thomas-gainsborough-mr-and-mrs-andrews">Mr and Mrs Andrews</a>, or even Cézanne’s <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/paul-cezanne-bathers-les-grandes-baigneuses">Bathers</a>. We can only hope.</p>
<p><em>Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery, London is at the NGA Canberra until June 14.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155963/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has in the past received funding from The Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
For many years the British government resisted requests for the UK’s National Gallery to tour its collection, one of the world’s greatest. Now 61 of these works can be seen in Canberra.
Joanna Mendelssohn, Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/146559
2020-09-22T20:05:15Z
2020-09-22T20:05:15Z
What does an ‘unforgettable, multi-sensory experience’ have to do with Vincent van Gogh?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358994/original/file-20200921-18-1qm6704.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A still from the exhibition Van Gogh Alive in Mexico.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Grande Exhibitions</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review, Van Gogh Alive, Royal Hall of Industries, Sydney.</em></p>
<p>In one of his many letters decrying modern art, Lionel Lindsay, my favourite <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334331294_Addled_Art-An_Opinion_Piece">aesthetic reactionary</a>, wrote, “Pauvre Vincent – but he had his idea!” </p>
<p>Vincent van Gogh, who changed forever our ways of seeing, was indeed an artist of ideas. Because of the intensity of his life – his poverty, his sense of both the glory and judgement of God, the way he died – more than any other artist, he seems to embody the abject. </p>
<p>It was only after his death that van Gogh became one of the most famous artists of all time. As most of his works are now in public collections, the art market has in the past <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/18/arts/a-27-million-loan-by-sotheby-s-helped-alan-bond-to-buy-irises.html">behaved shamelessly</a> when a van Gogh painting is made available for sale.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-looking-at-vincent-van-goghs-olive-grove-with-two-olive-pickers-76312">Here's looking at: Vincent Van Gogh’s Olive grove with two olive pickers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Still, such is the power of van Gogh’s art that the beauty of his small, intensely painted works easily overcome the tawdry machinations of the art market.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358996/original/file-20200921-24-19kzu9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358996/original/file-20200921-24-19kzu9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358996/original/file-20200921-24-19kzu9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358996/original/file-20200921-24-19kzu9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358996/original/file-20200921-24-19kzu9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358996/original/file-20200921-24-19kzu9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358996/original/file-20200921-24-19kzu9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358996/original/file-20200921-24-19kzu9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vincent van Gogh Irises (1889): small, intensely painted work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The efforts of the entrepreneurs behind <a href="https://www.vangoghalive.com.au/">Van Gogh Alive</a> are another matter. This is described in its publicity material as: “The world’s most acclaimed and visited multi-sensory, COVID-aware experience celebrating one of the most feted artists of all time”.</p>
<p>The name “van Gogh” is the hook. The reality is that after reading a bland, sanitised account of van Gogh’s life in the waiting area, visitors are ushered in to a large area where for 45 minutes a series of animated images based on blow-ups of the artist’s work are projected onto giant screens with “cinema-quality surround sound”. </p>
<p>I am still trying to work out the connection, if any, between a blasting of Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Little Swans from Swan Lake and pixillated flowers. That at least is less heavy-handed than introducing the segment of the last years of the artist’s life with Saint-Saën’s Danse Macabre. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358991/original/file-20200921-22-r51ijz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358991/original/file-20200921-22-r51ijz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358991/original/file-20200921-22-r51ijz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358991/original/file-20200921-22-r51ijz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358991/original/file-20200921-22-r51ijz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358991/original/file-20200921-22-r51ijz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358991/original/file-20200921-22-r51ijz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358991/original/file-20200921-22-r51ijz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Giant wilting sunflowers outside the exhibition space.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As well as projecting photographic reproductions of van Gogh’s work on a scale designed to overwhelm the viewer, some images are animated so that leaves and flowers change their relationship, while crows fly over golden wheat.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359207/original/file-20200922-14-seugaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359207/original/file-20200922-14-seugaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359207/original/file-20200922-14-seugaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359207/original/file-20200922-14-seugaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359207/original/file-20200922-14-seugaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359207/original/file-20200922-14-seugaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359207/original/file-20200922-14-seugaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359207/original/file-20200922-14-seugaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, oil on board, 1887.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Google Art Project</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The exhibition even includes a range of scents so visitors are “surrounded by a vibrant symphony of light, colour and fragrance”. There is no doubt Van Gogh Alive is a technical achievement and, as the publicist made great pains to point out at the media preview, a COVID-safe event in this age of pandemics.</p>
<p>So why was my reaction one of disgust rather than pleasure? <a href="https://grandeexhibitions.com">Grande Exhibitions</a>, the company that has toured this event to over 50 cities around the world, claims to create “a fresh and safe approach to art and culture”, as though they are both stale and inherently dangerous. </p>
<p>In a recorded speech, the company’s founder Bruce Peterson said he had previously had the unfortunate experience of being accompanied by discontented children when visiting actual exhibitions of art. He felt sound and light shows loosely based on great art were the solution. However, I strongly advise any parent against bringing a small child to this event, where there is no escape. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358993/original/file-20200921-16-9pd7bp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358993/original/file-20200921-16-9pd7bp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358993/original/file-20200921-16-9pd7bp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358993/original/file-20200921-16-9pd7bp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358993/original/file-20200921-16-9pd7bp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358993/original/file-20200921-16-9pd7bp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358993/original/file-20200921-16-9pd7bp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358993/original/file-20200921-16-9pd7bp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A still from the exhibition in Rome.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Grande Exhibitions</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-from-the-great-wave-to-starry-night-how-a-blue-pigment-changed-the-world-81031">Friday essay: from the Great Wave to Starry Night, how a blue pigment changed the world</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Time and attention</h2>
<p>Great works of art reveal their secrets after a long gaze. They need the viewer’s time and attention. That is why return visits to much-loved art are so rewarding. Each visit gives something more. The blasting of giant reproductions with surround sound is an experience that has little to do with the art it purports to honour.</p>
<p>Grande Exhibitions are able to create this “tribute” for only one reason. Vincent van Gogh died in 1890. His art is therefore out of <a href="https://www.nla.gov.au/how-long-does-copyright-last">copyright</a>, as is the musical accompaniment. This means anyone can reproduce or modify his work. </p>
<p>Van Gogh has influenced many fine artists. Martin Sharp was so inspired by his dream of a Yellow House where artists would live and work together that he initiated Sydney’s <a href="https://ro.uow.edu.au/yhgallery/32/">Yellow House</a> in Kings Cross. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-the-artist-martin-sharp-in-collage-21072">Remembering the artist Martin Sharp – in collage</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>More recently, the youngest Yellow House participant, George Gittoes, established another Yellow House with his performing troupe in <a href="http://gittoes.com/vision-statement/">Jalalabad</a> in Afghanistan. </p>
<p>Gordon Bennett’s 1988 painting <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/school_resource/gordon-bennett/">Outsider</a> incorporates elements of both Starry Night and Bedroom at Arles to make a profound statement on how his sense of self had been colonised by European culture. While paying tribute to van Gogh, none of these artists claim their works represent him.</p>
<p>By the time the trustees of art galleries in Australia came to appreciate van Gogh’s work, his art was beyond their budget capacity. For many years the National Gallery of Victoria believed a painting in its collection, Head of a Man, was by van Gogh, but in 2007 finally agreed with expert opinion that it was a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/australian-gallery-s-van-gogh-declared-a-fake-1.666439">fake</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358998/original/file-20200921-14-1mkw486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358998/original/file-20200921-14-1mkw486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358998/original/file-20200921-14-1mkw486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358998/original/file-20200921-14-1mkw486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358998/original/file-20200921-14-1mkw486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358998/original/file-20200921-14-1mkw486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358998/original/file-20200921-14-1mkw486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358998/original/file-20200921-14-1mkw486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vincent van Gogh, Head of a peasant, 1884.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Google Art Project</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1990, the Art Gallery of New South Wales purchased <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/211.1990/">Head of a peasant</a>, one of many studies he made of the poor and honourable.</p>
<p>However larger Australian galleries do have extensive holdings of artists influenced by van Gogh, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-monet-to-rodin-john-russell-australias-french-impressionist-maps-artistic-connections-100249">John Russell</a>, the Australian who befriended him.</p>
<p>Next year the National Gallery of Australia will exhibit <a href="https://nga.gov.au/masterpieces/">Botticelli to Van Gogh</a>, an exhibition from the National Gallery, London. This will include one of the real, the small, the marvellous paintings of Sunflowers painted by van Gogh.</p>
<p>Viewers can see the intensity of his colour, the controlled vigour of his brush strokes, and experience the pleasure of the gaze instead of the nausea of the blow-up.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146559/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has in the past received funding from the Australian Research Council </span></em></p>
The blasting of giant reproductions with surround sound is an experience that has little to do with the art it purports to honour.
Joanna Mendelssohn, Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/118599
2019-06-23T19:50:25Z
2019-06-23T19:50:25Z
In Never Look Away we finally have a painter biopic offering insight into the creative process
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280402/original/file-20190620-149835-1y7zil6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tom Schilling as Kurt Barnert – a slightly blurred facsimile of the famous German artist Gerhard Richter – in Never Look Away.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pergamon Film, Wiedemann & Berg Filmproduktion, Beta Cinema </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Depicting the moment of creative inspiration has been a challenge for filmmakers since the first ribbon of film rattled its way past a camera lens. In numerous films, the artist’s studio has been mythologised as a tantalising mystery, a place of transgression, of wild imaginings and not infrequently, of sexual license and debauchery. </p>
<p>In search of a window into that most mysterious of all human activities – the creative imagination – historians, filmmakers and journalists have tried to prise open the mind of famous artists. </p>
<p>A long list of films purports to show these artists in the throes of inspiration as they create the certified masterpieces we see adorning galleries in the world’s museums. Indeed, we seem to be amid an artist-biopic tidal wave as directors pull focus on yet another famous painter (occasionally sculptor, even more occasionally, a woman) and present their interpretation of what actually goes on in that holy sanctum, the studio. </p>
<p>The most recent is <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5311542/">Never Look Away</a>, loosely adapted from the life of Gerhard Richter by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. It comes hot on the heels of Julian Schnabel’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6938828/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">At Eternity’s Gate</a>, another retelling of Vincent van Gogh’s life story and Thomas M. Wright’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8634406/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1">Acute Misfortune</a>, which delves into Adam Cullen’s psyche. Other films are in the wings, examining the lives and work of L.S Lowry, Leonardo da Vinci, and Théodore Géricault.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280405/original/file-20190620-149818-1wyvhhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280405/original/file-20190620-149818-1wyvhhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280405/original/file-20190620-149818-1wyvhhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280405/original/file-20190620-149818-1wyvhhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280405/original/file-20190620-149818-1wyvhhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280405/original/file-20190620-149818-1wyvhhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280405/original/file-20190620-149818-1wyvhhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280405/original/file-20190620-149818-1wyvhhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Daniel Henshall in Acute Misfortune (2018).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Arenafilm, Blackheath Film, Plot Media</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Disappointingly, there is still an absence of women artists in filmmakers’ mythmaking biopics. While there are wonderful examples, such as the films documenting the lives and work of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094828/">Camille Claudel</a> (1988), <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120679/">Frida Kahlo</a> (2002) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1048171/">Séraphine de Senlis</a> (2008) they are rare exceptions.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uOUzQYqba4Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for Frida.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Filmmakers are predictably entranced by their heroes it seems and eagerly trawl the depths of their practice to better understand the processes of artistic creation, but why is this topic of such interest to a general public? </p>
<p>One reason may be that creativity is being promoted as an essential skill for the fourth industrial revolution. </p>
<p>The World Economic Forum is calling for a <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-10-skills-you-need-to-thrive-in-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/">lifelong approach to learning</a>
that encourages complex problem solving, critical thinking and creativity rather than the one-dimensional professional focus of the past. So, what better models could there be as the epitome of creative practice, than those great artists embedded in our collective conscience?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-creative-process-is-more-than-one-giant-leap-for-humankind-35901">The creative process is more than one giant leap for humankind</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Queasiness and rebellion</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280404/original/file-20190620-149843-19u8hp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280404/original/file-20190620-149843-19u8hp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280404/original/file-20190620-149843-19u8hp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280404/original/file-20190620-149843-19u8hp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280404/original/file-20190620-149843-19u8hp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280404/original/file-20190620-149843-19u8hp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280404/original/file-20190620-149843-19u8hp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280404/original/file-20190620-149843-19u8hp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Charles Laughton in Rembrandt (1936).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">London Film Productions</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Famous artists have been the subject of popular films since Alexander Korda called action in 1936 and the cameras rolled on Charles Laughton shuffling through a vast studio in the guise of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028167/?ref_=nm_flmg_prd_38">Rembrandt</a>, sucking his pipe and wielding his <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/mahlstick">mahlstick</a> while creating an unseen masterpiece.</p>
<p>At least one scene, in which Rembrandt unveils a portrait of a powerful soldier to a hostile reception – an act of creative rebellion that ends a stellar career – is a total fiction. Still, it makes for a compelling scene.</p>
<p>In At Eternity’s Gate, Julian Schnabel, who is a famous artist himself, infuriatingly depicts Vincent van Gogh’s precarious mental state through a manic hand-held camera that has his audience lurching around in their seats seeking stasis. </p>
<p>Fortunately, Vincent’s own words, through his letters to his brother Theo, reveal something of the inner torment and the process of re-interpretation that brings some clarity and insight into how these wondrous images were formed on the canvas. (These letters also featured in Paul Cox’s 1987 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094269/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_20">Vincent</a>).
Without these voice-overs, Schnabel’s film would invoke nothing other than incoherent queasiness.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/T77PDm3e1iE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for At Eternity’s Gate.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-looking-at-vincent-van-goghs-olive-grove-with-two-olive-pickers-76312">Here's looking at: Vincent Van Gogh’s Olive grove with two olive pickers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>‘The scab that forms on the wound’</h2>
<p>Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s epic portrayal of 30 years of German history, reflected in the life of a young artist seeking his way in the world, is not perfect. Still, it does go further than many of his predecessors in peeling back some of the unhelpful tropes that have blinkered our understanding of the creative process. </p>
<p>Like Korda, he is not squeamish about fictionalising the events in the life of his protagonist in the process of a creative re-imagining. Kurt Barnert – the lead protagonist in the film – is not Gerhard Richter, just a slightly blurred facsimile of the famous German artist.</p>
<p>In this way, von Donnersmarck gives himself license to reinterpret and refocus his understanding of how memory, pain, and anger can be fused in the act of making an image on a canvas.</p>
<p>In his studio in the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1963, Barnert thrashes around re-making the works of contemporary American and German artists who have found success in the marketplace. </p>
<p>Waltzing with paint-soaked feet on a roll of paper, making papier-mâché figures and painting geometric abstractions, he finally resolves to fuse his undeniable technical virtuosity with his life experiences. </p>
<p>The black and white photographs he had packed in his bag on his flight from East Germany to the West were the catalyst for the works we associate with Richter; a soft brush drawn slowly over almost dry oil paint to create a blurring that seals the image as memory. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280403/original/file-20190620-149810-1nfi4jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280403/original/file-20190620-149810-1nfi4jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280403/original/file-20190620-149810-1nfi4jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280403/original/file-20190620-149810-1nfi4jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280403/original/file-20190620-149810-1nfi4jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280403/original/file-20190620-149810-1nfi4jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280403/original/file-20190620-149810-1nfi4jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280403/original/file-20190620-149810-1nfi4jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tom Schilling in Never Look Away.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pergamon Film, Wiedemann & Berg Filmproduktion, Beta Cinema</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They are images that elicit complex responses from an audience who may not have experienced the same events but can relate closely enough to find solace. </p>
<p>Von Donnersmarck doesn’t entirely relinquish the stereotypes of depicting the “lightbulb” moment of creative insight. Like Korda’s pensive, pipe-sucking Rembrandt, Schnabel’s whirling dervish van Gogh and Carol Reed’s version of Michelangelo’s epiphany in his 1965 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058886/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1">The Agony and the Ecstasy</a> – when an image of God holding out his hand to touch the finger of a recumbent Adam is revealed in the clouds to a spellbound Charlton Heston – we have Barnert and his blank canvas. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aZHbjT-pZ_I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for The Agony and the Ecstasy.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sitting for days staring at that tabula rasa, the wind rustling the leaves outside framed by the window in his light-soaked studio, the music slowly building to a crescendo, his artistic revelation comes.</p>
<p>However, von Donnersmarck has built layers of experience and memory into a complex amalgam of ideas over two and a half hours before we get to that scene. From a childhood visit to the Nazi Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition and the murder of his aunt, through his training and early success in the DDR under Soviet influence, we have seen Barnert build the armoury of skills and experience from which he will forge his artistic career.</p>
<p>In the process von Donnersmarck has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR0-X6WPKEc">developed his thesis</a> that “creativity is the scab that forms on the wound” of these artists’ lives. “It gives us that wonderful feeling that our suffering can be of use.”</p>
<p>“Never look away, everything is beautiful,” his aunt tells the young Barnert. The transformative power of art is to embrace that freedom to engage without limits and “by freeing yourself, you are liberating the world”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118599/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Snell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Standing out among the crowd of recent artist biopics, the new film Never Look Away peels back some unhelpful tropes that have blinkered our understanding of the artist’s process.
Ted Snell, Professor, Chief Cultural Officer, Cultural Precinct, The University of Western Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/100249
2018-07-23T02:01:40Z
2018-07-23T02:01:40Z
From Monet to Rodin, John Russell: Australia’s French Impressionist maps artistic connections
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from John Russell:
Almond tree in blossom c1887
oil on gold ground on canvas on plywood 46.2 x 55.1 cm.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. The Joseph Brown Collection. Presented through the NGV Foundation by Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 2004 (2004.216)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1965, when Donald Finley, the news and information officer at Australia House, persuaded London art dealer Wildenstein & Co to introduce the English public to the work of a man then called “Australia’s Lost Impressionist”, the artist’s name was changed. In order to prevent confusion with John Russell, an 18th century English portrait painter, a middle name was inserted. So the world came to know of art by “John Peter Russell”, a name unfamiliar to its Antipodean owner. It is only in recent years that John Russell’s name has been reclaimed for his art.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228737/original/file-20180723-142420-a6cw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228737/original/file-20180723-142420-a6cw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228737/original/file-20180723-142420-a6cw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228737/original/file-20180723-142420-a6cw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228737/original/file-20180723-142420-a6cw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228737/original/file-20180723-142420-a6cw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228737/original/file-20180723-142420-a6cw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228737/original/file-20180723-142420-a6cw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Russell,
In the afternoon 1891 oil on canvas.
65.1 x 65.4 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, purchased with funds provided by the Art Gallery Society of New South Wales 2016 Photo: AGNSW, Mim Stirling</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this exhibition, at The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Wayne Tunnicliffe’s curatorial vision gives Russell his due as an artist interacting with his colleagues: sending information and ideas to Tom Roberts in Melbourne, supporting the angst-ridden Dutchman Vincent Van Gogh, mentoring the young Henri Matisse, learning from the virtuoso Claude Monet and establishing a life-long friendship with Auguste Rodin. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228727/original/file-20180723-142420-a73s1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228727/original/file-20180723-142420-a73s1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228727/original/file-20180723-142420-a73s1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228727/original/file-20180723-142420-a73s1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228727/original/file-20180723-142420-a73s1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228727/original/file-20180723-142420-a73s1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228727/original/file-20180723-142420-a73s1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228727/original/file-20180723-142420-a73s1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Russell,
Vincent van Gogh 1886.
oil on canvas
60.1 x 45.6 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (State of the Netherlands) Photo: Maurice Tromp</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The exhibition gives physical evidence of the full extent of Russell’s connections to his many colleagues. The well known portrait of Van Gogh sits alongside a Van Gogh self portrait of the same period, linking the paintings by both style and subject. Magically, it also includes Van Gogh’s drawing, Haystacks. Given by the artist to Russell, he in turn gave it to the young Matisse. </p>
<p>The two Matisse paintings, showing an uncharacteristic bravura brushstroke, were the result of a visit to Russell at his home in Belle-Île, Brittany. Some years earlier Russell had seen Monet painting Belle-Île, and had introduced himself.
Monet’s <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/8356/">Port-Goulphar, Belle-Île</a> of 1887, which is in the collection of AGNSW, shows the degree to which the master influenced the student’s development, purifying his colour and freeing his brushwork, effectively turning him into an Impressionist. In letters to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Hosched%C3%A9">Alice Hoschedé</a>, Monet expressed pleasure at dining with the Australian (who he called an American). Russell was independently wealthy and so employed an excellent cook, much appreciated by the older artist.</p>
<p>Russell was born in Sydney, the son of the engineering family, P.N. Russell & Co, which was responsible for much of 19th century Sydney’s ironwork. His father believed his son was destined to join the family business. Unlike other wealthy young Australians, Russell was not educated at Oxford or Cambridge, but instead was sent to England to become a “gentleman apprentice” engineer. His father’s death in 1879 gave him the freedom to leave industry and turn to art. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228728/original/file-20180723-142435-1x11bfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228728/original/file-20180723-142435-1x11bfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228728/original/file-20180723-142435-1x11bfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228728/original/file-20180723-142435-1x11bfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228728/original/file-20180723-142435-1x11bfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228728/original/file-20180723-142435-1x11bfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228728/original/file-20180723-142435-1x11bfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228728/original/file-20180723-142435-1x11bfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Russell,
Morning, Cruach en Mahr, Belle-Île-en-Mer c1905.
oil on canvas
60.4 x 73.5 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Private collection, London, courtesy of Nevill Keating Pictures, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It may be that his years at the ironworks at Lincoln led him to value realism over classicism, but when he first enrolled as an art student, Russell chose the realist approach of the Slade, where he was taught by the French artist Alphonse Legros. This was in contrast to the sedate Royal Academy School, usually favoured by colonials. Later, in Paris, he did not join fellow international students at the open studio of the Academie Julian, where the masters from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts would make a weekly appearance. </p>
<p>Instead, he enrolled at Fernand Cormon’s small studio school where approximately 35 mainly French students had a more intensive program. Fellow students included Toulouse Lautrec and Emile Bernard, but they were soon joined by an intense, very eccentric older Dutchman, Vincent Van Gogh. The ensuing friendship between these two was perhaps shaped in part by Russell’s independence of spirit, as to the Parisians he was an archetypal “wild Australian” who would always be a bit of an outsider. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228738/original/file-20180723-142428-1dlnp3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228738/original/file-20180723-142428-1dlnp3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228738/original/file-20180723-142428-1dlnp3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228738/original/file-20180723-142428-1dlnp3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228738/original/file-20180723-142428-1dlnp3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228738/original/file-20180723-142428-1dlnp3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228738/original/file-20180723-142428-1dlnp3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228738/original/file-20180723-142428-1dlnp3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Russell,
Peasant woman with sunflowers,
oil on canvas.
32.5 x 46.5 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection of Allen Hunter & Carmel Dyer, Brisbane Photo: AGNSW, Jenni Carter</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The exhibition traces Russell’s career beginning with an early self-portrait painted in Sydney and his travels in Granada with Tom Roberts. Some of the most beautiful drawings are of Marianna Antoinetta Mattiocco, the model who became his mistress and then his wife. They show her tactile beauty, the smooth tranquility of her face, the elegance of her form. In 1888, shortly before they married, Russell wrote to Rodin, requesting an introduction so that the sculptor might make a portrait of the new Madame Russell. Marianna Russell became the subject of several portrait busts by Rodin, some of which are included in the exhibition.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228731/original/file-20180723-142417-vyhqvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Russell,
Almond tree in blossom, c1887.
oil on gold ground on canvas on plywood 46.2 x 55.1 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. The Joseph Brown Collection. Presented through the NGV Foundation by Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 2004 (2004.216)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Russell did not immediately move towards Impressionism. At first, under the influence of Van Gogh, he started to compose works influenced by the asymmetry of Japanese woodcuts. Both he and <a href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0176V1962">Van Gogh</a> admired almond blossoms, evoking in paint their transient beauty. In 1887, just after the death of his first son, Jean Paolo, Russell painted a series of blossom paintings and it is not too hard to see these as a tribute to that brief life.</p>
<p>One of the great joys of this exhibition is the large group of works painted at Belle-Île, where the Russells made their home. There are paintings of domesticity, with children, as well as some of the local people at work, but best of all is the wall displaying a series of paintings of the great crashing waves, where the artist’s rapid strokes define the foam and swirl of water. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228736/original/file-20180723-142408-qsjw6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228736/original/file-20180723-142408-qsjw6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228736/original/file-20180723-142408-qsjw6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228736/original/file-20180723-142408-qsjw6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228736/original/file-20180723-142408-qsjw6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228736/original/file-20180723-142408-qsjw6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228736/original/file-20180723-142408-qsjw6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228736/original/file-20180723-142408-qsjw6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Russell,
Rough sea, Morestil c1900.
oil on canvas on hardboard
66 x 81.8 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, purchased 1968 Photo: AGNSW, Jenni Carter</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The beauty of gardens</h2>
<p>The turbulence of these works is contrasted with the luminous beauty of the landscapes he painted on visits to Antibes on the Riviera. Russell took great pleasure in the tranquil beauty of gardens, of flowers in season and the pattern of blossom. The last work in the exhibition, Mrs Russell among the flowers in the garden of Goulphar, Belle-Île 1907, shows a painstaking layering of a medley of colour as the field blossoms seem to move in homage to the one small, white-clad figure. At the time he was painting this Marianna was dying of cancer. He left Belle-Île soon after.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228735/original/file-20180723-142411-1ypufwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228735/original/file-20180723-142411-1ypufwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228735/original/file-20180723-142411-1ypufwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228735/original/file-20180723-142411-1ypufwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228735/original/file-20180723-142411-1ypufwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228735/original/file-20180723-142411-1ypufwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228735/original/file-20180723-142411-1ypufwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228735/original/file-20180723-142411-1ypufwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Russell,
Mrs Russell among the flowers in the garden of Goulphar, Belle-Île 1907.
oil on canvas
79 x 100 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Musée d’Orsay, Paris, held by the Musée de Morlaix, bequest of Mme Jouve 1948</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are a number of reasons why Russell remained little known until decades after his death in 1930. Despite remarrying in 1912, he did not settle in one place for any length of time. The disruption of World War I led the family to relocate to England.</p>
<p>In 1921 Russell returned to Sydney, where after holding one exhibition at the Sydney Camera Circle, he ceased to exhibit. His last paintings of orange roofed bungalows overlooking the Harbour give the reason why. These modestly painterly works would have seemed extreme for a Sydney that only accepted modern art if it was smooth and flat. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228730/original/file-20180723-142420-opc36s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228730/original/file-20180723-142420-opc36s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228730/original/file-20180723-142420-opc36s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228730/original/file-20180723-142420-opc36s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228730/original/file-20180723-142420-opc36s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228730/original/file-20180723-142420-opc36s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228730/original/file-20180723-142420-opc36s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228730/original/file-20180723-142420-opc36s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Peter Russell,
Regatta, Rose Bay 1922.
oil on canvas
57 x 76 cm</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Private collection, Melbourne Photo: AGNSW, Jenni Carter</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Russell’s cousin Thea Proctor, one of the most influential tastemakers of her generation, ensured that he was not forgotten after his death. Thanks to her advocacy he appears in William Moore’s <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1057015">1934 Story of Australian Art</a> as a colleague of Tom Roberts and a friend of Rodin. In her later years, she continued to urge the AGNSW to acquire his work and also ensured that Bernard Smith knew of him when he was writing his definitive <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/10290523?selectedversion=NBD1909577">Australian Painting 1790-1960</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228729/original/file-20180723-142417-oetxx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228729/original/file-20180723-142417-oetxx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228729/original/file-20180723-142417-oetxx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228729/original/file-20180723-142417-oetxx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228729/original/file-20180723-142417-oetxx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228729/original/file-20180723-142417-oetxx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228729/original/file-20180723-142417-oetxx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/228729/original/file-20180723-142417-oetxx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Russell,
The garden, Longpré-les-Corps-Saints, 1887.
oil on canvas
73x120cm
Private collection, Melbourne</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: AGNSW, Jenni Carter</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is the second Russell exhibition to be organised by the gallery. The first, The Art of John Peter Russell of 1978, also exhibited at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, was the result of Ann Galbally’s 1975 PhD thesis.</p>
<p>Galbally has also contributed an essay to the current substantial catalogue, which includes transcripts of correspondence between Russell and Tom Roberts, Van Gogh and Rodin. While the earlier exhibitions established the breadth and quality of Russell, in this exhibition Tunnicliffe has shown the network of connections between artists, crossing national boundaries.</p>
<p><em>John Russell: Australia’s French Impressionist is on view at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney until 11 November 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100249/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has received funding in the past from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>
John Russell, who was destined to become an engineer, instead became an artist in fin de siècle France – and a friend of Van Gogh, Monet and Rodin.
Joanna Mendelssohn, Honorary Associate Professor, Art & Design: UNSW Australia. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/86578
2017-10-31T14:08:49Z
2017-10-31T14:08:49Z
The Mary, Queen of Scots cover up – and why hidden paintings keep being found
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192482/original/file-20171030-18720-1ehljr2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Behind the mask. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Galleries of Scotland</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>An exciting discovery for British history buffs: an unfinished portrait believed to be of Mary, Queen of Scots <a href="https://www.nationalgalleries.org/press-office">has been</a> revealed under a 16th-century painting using X-ray photography. The hidden portrait is a special find by painting conservator <a href="http://courtauld.ac.uk/people/caroline-rae">Caroline Rae</a>, yet it is not unique. In having her features painted over, Scotland’s doomed queen finds herself in excellent company. </p>
<p>The portrait in question is of Sir John Maitland, the first Lord Maitland of Thirlestane (1543-1595), and normally hangs in a gallery in London. At the time it was painted in 1589, two years after Mary’s death, Maitland was one of the most powerful men in Scotland, having attained the office of Lord Chancellor. The work is attributed to <a href="https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/artists/adrian-vanson">Adrian Vanson</a> (or Van Son), an artist from the Low Countries who later became court painter to James VI, Mary’s son. </p>
<p>The X-ray revealed that Vanson originally had very different plans for this portrait. Instead of Maitland’s face with its characteristic moustache and goatee, we can see the face of a woman, slightly tilted and turned in the opposite direction. The outlines of a square-necked gown and a wired lace ruff are clearly visible; the ghostlike appearance of someone who perhaps needed to be forgotten. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192485/original/file-20171030-18735-e2xtwa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192485/original/file-20171030-18735-e2xtwa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192485/original/file-20171030-18735-e2xtwa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192485/original/file-20171030-18735-e2xtwa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192485/original/file-20171030-18735-e2xtwa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192485/original/file-20171030-18735-e2xtwa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192485/original/file-20171030-18735-e2xtwa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192485/original/file-20171030-18735-e2xtwa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Can you tell what it is yet?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Galleries of Scotland</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mary Stuart <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/mary_queen_of_scots/">was executed</a> for plotting the murder of Elizabeth I of England. Her image was identified from the few authentic portraits in existence, including <a href="http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O62538/portrait-miniature-hilliard-nicholas/">two miniatures</a> by the English painter Nicholas Hilliard. </p>
<p>If it is Mary, the painting may well have been begun around the time of her execution. This would be surprising but not unlikely: it is easy to imagine portraits of her still being in demand in Scotland but at some point being judged too dangerous. Whether asked to do so by a patron or at his own initiative, Vanson would have been reusing the panel to cover up the politically sensitive evidence. </p>
<h2>Cover ups and more cover ups</h2>
<p>The history of art is full of examples of covered up or destroyed portraits. Often politically motivated, they are sometimes known by the Latin expression <em>damnatio memoriae</em> – the condemnation of memory. In ancient Rome the senate sometimes sanctioned the destruction of the images of previous emperors on coins and life-size sculptures, whereby often only the heads would be replaced – a cheap solution. </p>
<p>There are other good examples from around Mary’s time. The Italian bishop Bernardo de’ Rossi commissioned a painting of the Madonna and Child that included his own portrait, having recently survived an attempt on his life. But at a later date his family had his image painted over in favour of an infant St John the Baptist. No one looking at the painting nowadays would guess that it once contained the bishop. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192479/original/file-20171030-18735-4os3v3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192479/original/file-20171030-18735-4os3v3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192479/original/file-20171030-18735-4os3v3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192479/original/file-20171030-18735-4os3v3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192479/original/file-20171030-18735-4os3v3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192479/original/file-20171030-18735-4os3v3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192479/original/file-20171030-18735-4os3v3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192479/original/file-20171030-18735-4os3v3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Madonna and Child (1503), Lorenzo Lotto.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Later in the 16th century Bianca Capello, grand duchess of Tuscany, fell victim to a campaign of <em>damnatio memoriae</em>: after her premature and possibly violent death her brother in law, Ferdinando de’ Medici, saw many of her portraits destroyed.</p>
<p>There are also more recent examples. The Soviet Union <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/people-who-were-erased-from-history-2013-12?IR=T">was notorious</a> for erasing unwanted figures from the photographic record, long before the existence of Photoshop. Stalin had the head of his secret police, Nikolai Yezhov, airbrushed after his execution in 1940, for instance. The Nazis and Chinese communists also have form in this respect. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192480/original/file-20171030-18683-f3lut0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192480/original/file-20171030-18683-f3lut0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192480/original/file-20171030-18683-f3lut0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=236&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192480/original/file-20171030-18683-f3lut0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=236&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192480/original/file-20171030-18683-f3lut0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=236&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192480/original/file-20171030-18683-f3lut0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192480/original/file-20171030-18683-f3lut0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192480/original/file-20171030-18683-f3lut0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nikolai Yezhov vanishes from Stalin’s left …</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Artists sometimes covered up initial compositions for more mundane reasons than politics, of course. Vincent van Gogh is <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/two-for-the-price-of-one-van-gogh-confirmed-with-another-underneath-7578001.html">well known</a> for having recycled canvases to save money. Three years ago, researchers ascribed similar motivations to Pablo Picasso after finding a portrait of a man with a bow tie underneath his famous <a>Blue Room</a>. No less spectacular was the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/aug/04/x-ray-reveals-mysterious-face-hidden-beneath-degas-portrait-of-a-woman">discovery</a> last year of Edgar Degas’s favourite model under his Portrait of a Woman. </p>
<p>While art historians have been using X-rays to analyse the authorship of paintings for over a hundred years, it has always been limited by the fact that, depending on the chemical composition of the paint, it does not make everything visible, and only results in the characteristic black-and-white image. </p>
<p>This makes the results difficult to interpret, although it can still produce important results, as we see with this latest discovery. Yet recent advances in X-ray technology have helped to overcome this problem in certain cases: a technique called <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep29594">X-ray fluorescence</a> makes it possible to see under-paintings in high-resolution full colour. This is what was used to uncover the image in the Degas painting, for example. </p>
<p>While specialised knowledge and highly costly equipment are required, it is probably only a matter of time before more fascinating discoveries are offered up by old masters. Who knows what else might be revealed from the Maitland painting if it was subjected to similar techniques. A tantalising prospect, especially for what such finds may tell us about artistic process and changing historical fortunes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86578/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elsje van Kessel receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust.</span></em></p>
An old Scottish master has revealed its secret after 430 years. What next from art detectives?
Elsje van Kessel, Lecturer in Art History, University of St Andrews
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/86419
2017-10-27T12:53:17Z
2017-10-27T12:53:17Z
Old-school painting meets cutting-edge animation: Loving Vincent is a rich visual feast
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192214/original/file-20171027-13349-7y1xs7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Loving Vince crop</span> </figcaption></figure><p>The cinematic experience continues to be dominated by digitally led projects and audiences who increasingly expect more and more technical innovation. So it is refreshing when a mainstream cinema release consciously chooses to place traditional, artist-led techniques at its very heart. Hailed as the first “fully painted feature film” <a href="http://lovingvincent.com/">Loving Vincent</a> – the story of Dutch <a href="http://www.vangoghgallery.com/influences/post-impressionism.html">post-impressionist Vincent Van Gogh</a> – does just that.</p>
<p>Recreating Van Gogh’s vivid <a href="http://site.artsheaven.com/blog/vincent-van-gogh-painting-style-and-techniques/">impasto</a> brushstrokes (where the paint is applied thickly to create texture and convey feeling), the film resembles the struggling artist’s paintings come to life – and to mesmerising effect. But hidden beneath the beautifully painted flowing surface of animated oil paint and canvas, lie a number of sophisticated digital processes that helped bring this project to the screen. The result is a groundbreaking hybrid that perfectly bridges the space between a traditional artform and cutting-edge animation technology.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bRDSTw6mNwY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">YouTube.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Loving Vincent was co-directed and co-written by <a href="http://filmmakermagazine.com/84440-loving-vincent-animation-in-oil/#.WfIaWRNSzq1">husband-and-wife team</a> Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman – the Academy Award-winning producer of the 2006 stop-motion animated short <a href="https://www.awn.com/animationworld/peter-and-wolf-stop-motion-finds-dark-side">Peter and the Wolf</a> – and was produced jointly by Breakthru Films and Trademark Films.</p>
<p>The genesis of the film came from a very human place when, during a time of personal crisis, Kobiela, a trained painter and filmmaker, turned to the <a href="http://vangoghletters.org/vg/">letters</a> of Vincent van Gogh for comfort. It was in response to these letters that she developed the idea, originally intended to be a short film that would be a personal project.</p>
<p>Evolving Loving Vincent into a feature film was a six-year journey that allowed Kobiela to combine her passions for filmmaking, painting and the art of Van Gogh – bringing Van Gogh’s tragic story and his distinctive art to life.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192208/original/file-20171027-13349-1dkagb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192208/original/file-20171027-13349-1dkagb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192208/original/file-20171027-13349-1dkagb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192208/original/file-20171027-13349-1dkagb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192208/original/file-20171027-13349-1dkagb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192208/original/file-20171027-13349-1dkagb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192208/original/file-20171027-13349-1dkagb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actor Robert Gulaczyk plays Van Gogh.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Breakthru Films</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Inspired by more than 100 of his paintings and 800 of his letters, the film explores the final months of the then little-known post-impressionist painter and his untimely death in 1890 at the age of 37 – an event that remains shrouded in mystery and speculation. The story is visually interpreted through his paintings, including many of Van Gogh’s most iconic portraits and landscapes, told in his own words and those of the people who knew him, from his brother <a href="https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/stories/brotherly-love#0">Theo</a> to his friend and fellow painter <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/paul-gauguin-1144">Paul Gauguin</a>.</p>
<p>Naturally in this digital age, it was assumed that the film would be made using computer-generated techniques. But Kobiela and Welchman felt strongly that painting was the only way of bringing Van Gogh’s work to life, remaining faithful to the essence of the original works and to Vincent himself. It would be a labour of love.</p>
<h2>Bringing art to life</h2>
<p>In 2014 following a year-long phase of painting design, computer generated layout and “previsualisation” – a method used in live-action and animated film making to get an idea of complex scenes before filming starts – the film was then shot with real actors. The cast included Robert Gulaczyk, Douglas Booth, Chris O’Dowd, Helen McCrory, Saoirse Ronan and Aidan Turner performing in a combination of green-screen studio stages and sets built in Van Gogh’s style to replicate elements of the painted scenes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192207/original/file-20171027-13349-6vkxd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192207/original/file-20171027-13349-6vkxd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192207/original/file-20171027-13349-6vkxd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192207/original/file-20171027-13349-6vkxd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192207/original/file-20171027-13349-6vkxd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192207/original/file-20171027-13349-6vkxd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192207/original/file-20171027-13349-6vkxd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Real actors, dressed as subjects from Van Gogh’s paintings, were filmed on green screen, each frame traced and then painted.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Breakthru Films</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This live-action footage was then combined with computer-generated visual effects such as digital backgrounds, buildings, clouds and animals, which would serve as key reference material for the animators. This footage, merging the actors and their surroundings was “<a href="https://blog.ed.ted.com/2017/05/31/animation-basics-what-is-rotoscoping/">rotoscoped</a>” – a traditional method of projecting individual film images that are then traced frame-by-frame – by the painting animators in oil paint on canvas. It was a painstaking and meticulous process and a true testament to all the artists involved. The finished film has 65,000 frames and used more than 1,000 canvases and 4,500 litres of oil paint.</p>
<p>But it is one thing to paint a still image – a single moment frozen in time – like Van Gogh, it is quite another to animate in his style for a 94-minute feature-length film. So the production team set out to recruit a crew of artists – painter-animators – who could transform the live-action footage into painted form and yet remain faithful to Van Gogh’s distinctive style. This meant capturing the same technique and spirit of the original work.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192210/original/file-20171027-13298-yig372.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192210/original/file-20171027-13298-yig372.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192210/original/file-20171027-13298-yig372.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192210/original/file-20171027-13298-yig372.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192210/original/file-20171027-13298-yig372.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192210/original/file-20171027-13298-yig372.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192210/original/file-20171027-13298-yig372.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sophisticated painter-animator workstation technology was patented specially for the film.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Breakthru Films</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These painter-animators also required an essential understanding and feeling for the movement required – the ability to literally animate every brushstroke. Following applications from more than 600 artists, painting auditions were held and the successful artists received six weeks of training delivered by Kobiela herself. A total of 125 painter animators worked on the final film.</p>
<p>Based in the production’s three studios at Gdansk and Wroclaw in Poland, and one in Athens, the painter-animators worked on PAWS (painting animation workstations) a new technology devised and patented specifically for the project by Breakthru Films. </p>
<p>These special workstations allowed the artists to focus on the creative processes of recreating the reference footage in painted form and then digitally capture the completed frames. Each PAWS unit housed a painting desk, a projector that allowed the live-action reference footage to be beamed on to canvas for rotoscoping, a customised lighting rig and a 6K resolution digital camera to capture and record each frame.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192205/original/file-20171027-13315-khfun3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192205/original/file-20171027-13315-khfun3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192205/original/file-20171027-13315-khfun3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192205/original/file-20171027-13315-khfun3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192205/original/file-20171027-13315-khfun3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192205/original/file-20171027-13315-khfun3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192205/original/file-20171027-13315-khfun3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Loving Vincent used 125 painter-animators who spent months recreating Van Gogh’s trademark brushstroke style for every frame.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Breakthru Films</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The end product is an exceptional, ground-breaking film. You cannot help but wonder how Van Gogh himself would have felt to see his extraordinary visceral paintings recreated as a moving film. For us lesser mortals, Loving Vincent is a rich visual feast that captures the spirit of a great artist who burned to receive recognition for his talent while he was alive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86419/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Messinger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A labour of love, this groundbreaking animation took six years and hundreds of artists to bring Vincent Van Gogh’s vivid paintings to life.
Stuart Messinger, Award Leader: Animation and Stop Motion Animation and Puppet Making, Staffordshire University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/76803
2017-04-28T06:02:18Z
2017-04-28T06:02:18Z
Van Gogh and the Seasons is a sensitively curated crowd-pleaser despite a paucity of masterpieces
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167106/original/file-20170428-15102-ayeu8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A detail from Vincent Van Gogh's A wheatfield, with cypresses, early September 1889. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery, London. Bought, Courtauld Fund, 1923 (NG3861) © The National Gallery, London</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/van-gogh-and-the-seasons/">Van Gogh and the Seasons</a>, showing at the National Gallery of Victoria, is more than an opportunity for a geographically isolated Australian audience to view the works of one of the world’s best-known and beloved artists in the flesh. Our last major Van Gogh exhibition occurred one generation ago in 1993 at the NGV, moving on to Queensland in early 1994. It adopted a broad perspective on Van Gogh’s genius, placing him in the context of both his sources and his impact on the history of art.</p>
<p>With 35 paintings and 13 drawings from 20 lenders, this new exhibition is not huge in scope and does not feature Van Gogh’s most iconic works. However, it is the largest collection of his work ever to travel to Australia and the first exhibition anywhere to focus so intensively on the seasonal theme. It is the fourteenth in the series of Melbourne Winter Masterpieces and brings a welcome surge of colour and movement to a damp and bleak Melbourne.</p>
<p>Van Gogh’s total immersion in the natural world, both as the subject of his art and for its therapeutic effects, saw him observe, in minute detail, the everchanging moods and landscapes of the seasons, cyclical time through the rhythms of farming and human activity, and the qualities of light that changed with both the time of day and the time of year.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167107/original/file-20170428-15112-1gkxjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167107/original/file-20170428-15112-1gkxjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167107/original/file-20170428-15112-1gkxjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167107/original/file-20170428-15112-1gkxjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167107/original/file-20170428-15112-1gkxjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167107/original/file-20170428-15112-1gkxjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167107/original/file-20170428-15112-1gkxjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167107/original/file-20170428-15112-1gkxjwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vincent Van Gogh, Avenue of poplars in autumn, late October 1884 Nuenen, oil on canvas on wood panel 99.0 x 65.7 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam Purchased with support from the Vincent van Gogh Foundation and the Rembrandt Association (s0141M1977)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a>Van Gogh (1853-1890)</a> was the son of a Protestant clergyman of the Groningen school and exhibited fervent religious devotion in his mid-twenties. He rejected this, to some extent, in the 1880s, as he commenced his art practice in earnest. However, a Christian outlook remained central to a worldview that also bordered on the pagan, with all of the natural world infused with a divine presence.</p>
<p>Van Gogh grew up imbued with notions of public service. In the family tradition, he studied to be a minister before undertaking preaching work in England, Holland and Belgium, often living almost as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendicant_orders">mendicant</a>.</p>
<p>When these efforts came to nought, he turned to making art with the financial support of his younger brother, Theo. This was less a break with his former ambitions than a continuation of “Christ-like service” in a different guise, and re-connected him, through Theo, to the family’s commercial art business.</p>
<p>Van Gogh’s hope, expressed repeatedly in his letters to Theo, was to share with others the profound healing to be found in nature and in colour. The seasonal cycle promises predictability within inevitable change, and the seeds of rebirth within each death.</p>
<h2>A tour through the seasons</h2>
<p>Van Gogh and the Seasons is curated by the former Head of Collections at the Van Gogh Museum, Sjraar van Heugten, with the assistance of the NGV’s Senior Curator of International Art, Dr Ted Gott. It adopts a focused approach, highlighting the pivotal seasonal theme of Van Gogh’s oeuvre through which the artist expressed the joys, disappointments, melancholia and bleakness of his own mental landscapes.</p>
<p>The exhibition is carefully curated to play up its many strengths, while disguising some of its weaknesses. The rooms are laid out as a journey through the year, and through Van Gogh’s life as an artist.</p>
<p>A beautifully shot, atmospheric video, narrated by David Stratton with David Wenham as the voice of Vincent, sets the stage, explaining the centrality of the seasons to Van Gogh’s work. The next two rooms explore his sources of inspiration in his personal print collection and his fascination with Japanese woodblock prints. As the originals of the latter are too delicate to travel, the display is pulled together from the NGV’s own collection and introduces the seasonal layout.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167109/original/file-20170428-15121-1oxtqlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167109/original/file-20170428-15121-1oxtqlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167109/original/file-20170428-15121-1oxtqlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167109/original/file-20170428-15121-1oxtqlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167109/original/file-20170428-15121-1oxtqlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167109/original/file-20170428-15121-1oxtqlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167109/original/file-20170428-15121-1oxtqlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167109/original/file-20170428-15121-1oxtqlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vincent Van Gogh, Farmhouse in Provence, June 1888 Arles, oil on canvas 46.1 x 60.9 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Art, Washington. Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection (1970.17.34)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The remainder of the exhibition is a stroll through Van Gogh’s seasons, each separated by a semi-transparent black screen in a manner reminiscent of traditional Japanese architecture. The metaphor of the journey is extended by placing almost all works on a wall of their own. This has the additional effect of making the exhibition seem larger and of downplaying the framing inconsistencies that would be distracting when hung together.</p>
<p>The first of Van Gogh’s seasons – autumn, his favourite – is the season of the sower of seeds on the bare earth. This is a recurring motif in Van Gogh’s work that derives from European painting traditions, reflects his interest in the poor and honest toiling peasantry, and is also associated with the figure of Christ.</p>
<p>It is a season for melancholy, burnt bronzes and dark autumnal shades, such as in Avenue of poplars in autumn (1884) and Autumn landscape at dusk (1885) in which a woman in mourning walks alone down an avenue of trees and long shadows.</p>
<p>By 1888 Van Gogh was introducing colour into even his autumn landscapes, depicting the bustle of the grape harvest in Arles in vivid blues, greens, purples and yellows, with just a few touches of red. From the window of his asylum room in 1989, he watched the <a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-looking-at-vincent-van-goghs-olive-grove-with-two-olive-pickers-76312">olive harvest and painted it about 30 times</a>, thinking always of Christ in the garden at Gethsemane. Unlike his contemporaries Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh omitted the figure of Christ, leaving the viewer to discover divinity in the landscape itself.</p>
<p>The bleakness of a snow-covered field in winter and an idle plough, alongside images of churchyards and funeral processions, speak of the harshness of existence and death, but also of the dormant seed beneath the snow, pregnant with the potential for germination in the spring.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167108/original/file-20170428-13738-1w50aae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167108/original/file-20170428-13738-1w50aae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167108/original/file-20170428-13738-1w50aae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167108/original/file-20170428-13738-1w50aae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167108/original/file-20170428-13738-1w50aae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167108/original/file-20170428-13738-1w50aae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167108/original/file-20170428-13738-1w50aae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167108/original/file-20170428-13738-1w50aae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vincent Van Gogh, The parsonage garden in the snow, January 1885 Nuenen, oil on canvas on wood panel 53.0 x 78.0 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, The Armand Hammer Collection, gift of the Armand Hammer Foundation</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Spring is the season of bulbs and blossoms, vivid greens, pinks and purples, lush growth and young green wheat. Grass spurts from nooks and crannies in gardens. Tree trunks fairly dance under clear blue skies.</p>
<p>Summer is the farmer now turned reaper, golden wheat fields ready for harvest, and the sheaths gathered in under turquoise skies. In these spring and summer paintings from Van Gogh’s last frenzied months of creativity, his mastery of colour and brushstroke are most apparent. The exhibition culminates in the iconic image of A wheatfield, with cypresses (1889) which, in a coup for the NGV, was loaned by the National Gallery of London. It was in just such a wheatfield that Van Gogh shot himself, ending his own life at the age of 37.</p>
<p>Van Gogh and the Seasons is a sensitively curated crowd pleaser that justifies the NGV’s recent ranking as the 19th most popular art gallery in the world.</p>
<p><em>Van Gogh and the Seasons is on display at NGV International, 180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne from 28 April – 9 July 2017 as part of the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76803/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anita Pisch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Van Gogh’s immersion in the natural world, for his art and for its therapeutic effects, saw him observe in minute detail the changing of the seasons.
Anita Pisch, Visiting Fellow, School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/76312
2017-04-25T19:54:32Z
2017-04-25T19:54:32Z
Here’s looking at: Vincent Van Gogh’s Olive grove with two olive pickers
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165515/original/image-20170418-32700-15xxv09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A detail from Vincent Van Gogh's, Olive grove with two olive pickers, December 1889 Saint-Rémy, oil on canvas 73.3 x 92.2 cm. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo © Collection Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In April 1889, Vincent Van Gogh booked himself into the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole Asylum in Saint-Rémy, in the South of France. The previous months had been a tumultuous period for the artist. </p>
<p>His dream of establishing an artist’s colony in his Yellow House in Arles was in tatters following his violent attack on his friend Paul Gauguin and his now legendary <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/oct/31/van-gogh-cut-off-his-ear-learning-brother-theo-to-marry-new-study">act of self-mutilation</a>. Although Van Gogh’s 444 days in Arles had been a period of unrivalled creativity, by April, he was severely depressed and in desperation sought refuge under the care of Dr Félix Rey.</p>
<p>The strict regimen of the hospital provided him with structure and security, enabling him to produce almost 150 paintings over the next 12 months. Initially, he was able to paint in an adjoining cell and within the walls, but when finally allowed to paint in the countryside surrounding the asylum, Van Gogh became enthralled by the gnarled, scarred olive trees that were just beginning to bear fruit. In the next six months, he painted this grove of olive trees on 18 separate occasions.</p>
<p>In his fragile condition, the strong, enduring trees with their anguished limbs seemed to echo Christ’s suffering and, unsurprisingly, they also became a metaphor for his own struggles. A symbol of life eternal, the olive trees’ gnarled trunks and twisted limbs recorded every ordeal of their long existence.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165516/original/image-20170418-32700-1lrhw9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165516/original/image-20170418-32700-1lrhw9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165516/original/image-20170418-32700-1lrhw9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165516/original/image-20170418-32700-1lrhw9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165516/original/image-20170418-32700-1lrhw9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165516/original/image-20170418-32700-1lrhw9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165516/original/image-20170418-32700-1lrhw9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165516/original/image-20170418-32700-1lrhw9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Van Gogh’s Olive Grove with two olive pickers in full.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Collection Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Each tree became the subject of a sermon, their individual messages illustrated in paintings and drawings and illuminated in a stream of letters to his brother Theo, his mother and sister and his artist friends Paul Gauguin and Emile Bernard.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters.html">letter to Theo</a> written on the 19th November 1889 he explained, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If I remain here I wouldn’t try to paint a Christ in the Garden of Olives, but in fact the olive picking as it’s still seen today and then giving the correct proportions of the human figure in it, that would perhaps make people think of it all the same.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165522/original/image-20170418-32720-13wypvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165522/original/image-20170418-32720-13wypvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165522/original/image-20170418-32720-13wypvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165522/original/image-20170418-32720-13wypvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165522/original/image-20170418-32720-13wypvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165522/original/image-20170418-32720-13wypvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165522/original/image-20170418-32720-13wypvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165522/original/image-20170418-32720-13wypvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Self Portrait by Vincent Van Gogh (1889)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Van Gogh did remain and almost immediately began a series of paintings of olive pickers, working in luminous groves that sparked with energy. He produced three versions of the same subject, three women using a ladder to pick the higher berries, possibly for their own use. </p>
<p>The first version was in the artist’s words “coloured with more somber tones” as winter approached and the last fruit gathered. The second version of this painting was painted in the studio in “a very discreet range” of colours, while the final version, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which he painted for his mother and sister would, he hoped, “be a little to your taste.”</p>
<p>Without explicitly showing Christ amongst the olive trees, Van Gogh embeds the message of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Gethsemane">Garden of Gethsemane</a> that salvation is available to those that accept God’s will, as the central theme of his painting. </p>
<p>A drawing of the subject had the approval of Paul Gauguin, with whom he was still corresponding, and it echoes his friend’s simplification of form. What identifies it immediately as a Van Gogh is the pulsing brushstrokes that inject a vibrating energy to energise the entire surface.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165518/original/image-20170418-32689-322d73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165518/original/image-20170418-32689-322d73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165518/original/image-20170418-32689-322d73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165518/original/image-20170418-32689-322d73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165518/original/image-20170418-32689-322d73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165518/original/image-20170418-32689-322d73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165518/original/image-20170418-32689-322d73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165518/original/image-20170418-32689-322d73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women Picking Olives by Vincent Van Gogh (1889).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg Collection, Gift of Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg, 1995, Bequest of Walter H. Annenberg, 2002</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The final version in the <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436536">Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York</a>, Women Picking Olives shimmers with light. As Vincent described to Theo in another letter written on the 19th December, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… I’m working on a painting at the moment, women picking olives … These are the colours: the field is violet, and further away yellow ochre, the olive trees with bronze trunks have grey-green foliage, the sky is entirely pink, and small figures pink also. There are only two notes, pink and green, which harmonize, neutralize each other, oppose each other. I’ll probably do 2 or three repetitions of it, for, in fact, it’s the result of a half-dozen studies of olive trees.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The nuanced use of colour and its symbolic purpose to reinforce the sense of the divine and the cycle of life was also the catalyst for Olive Grove with two olive pickers. This painting, on loan from the <a href="http://krollermuller.nl/en/vincent-van-gogh-olive-grove-with-two-olive-pickers">Kröller-Müller Museum</a>, is a more dynamic composition showing a man and a woman locked into the shadows below an irradiated sky. </p>
<p>Once again the complementary nodes, in this case, yellow and blue, create a harmony of opposites. The woman in the foreground is outlined in the same thick, black lines that describe the contorted trees while the man merges with the blue shadows. The pickers and the sinewy olives all strain upward towards the hope of spiritual salvation promised in the fiery yellow and orange brushmarks that singe the tree line.</p>
<p>Just six months later in the middle of summer, Vincent Van Gogh walked out into a wheat field and shot himself in the stomach. The hope these paintings embodied was no longer able to sustain him.</p>
<p><em>NGV International’s <a href="http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/van-gogh-and-the-seasons/">Van Gogh and the Seasons</a> runs from 28 April – 9 July.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76312/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Snell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The pickers and sinewy olives in this painting all strain upward towards the hope of spiritual salvation. But six months after he completed it, Vincent Van Gogh walked out into a wheat field and shot himself.
Ted Snell, Professor, Chief Cultural Officer, Cultural Precinct, The University of Western Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/65011
2016-09-07T19:20:07Z
2016-09-07T19:20:07Z
Under the influence of … Dumile Feni’s ‘African Guernica’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136886/original/image-20160907-16611-16gemxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dumile Feni's 'African Guernica' - charcoal on paper.</span> </figcaption></figure><p><em>In our regular series, “Under the influence”, we ask experts to share what they believe are the most influential works of art in their field. Here, artist/academic Sharlene Khan explains why she finds South African artist Dumile Feni’s “African Guernica” (ca 1967) hugely influential.</em></p>
<h2>My relationship with the work</h2>
<p>Standing in front of South African visual artist <a href="http://www.revisions.co.za/biographies/dumile-feni/#.V8_3Qfl97IU">Dumile Feni</a>’s “<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/dumile-feni-biography-sophia-reuss">African Guernica</a>” when I was 19 years old at the University of Fort Hare Gallery in 1996 felt like something between hero-worship and a pilgrimage. At high school, Feni was one of my “favourite” artists, in the way one speaks of favourites in one’s youth. </p>
<p>I loved seemingly tortured “expressionistic” artists like <a href="http://www.artble.com/artists/honore_daumier">Honoré Daumier</a>, <a href="http://www.artble.com/artists/vincent_van_gogh">Vincent Van Gogh</a>, <a href="http://www.franciscogoya.com/">Francisco Goya</a>, <a href="http://honolulumuseum.org/art/exhibitions/15899-k_kollwitz/">Käthe Kollwitz</a>, <a href="http://www.revisions.co.za/biographies/cyprian-shilakoe/#.V8_7sPl97IU">Cyprien Shilakoe</a> and Feni. They seemed to understand the depth of human suffering. Their commentary undercut politics to question the very soul of human beings. </p>
<p>“African Guernica” – often spoken in relation to Spaniard Pablo Picasso’s equally haunting work <a href="http://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp">commentary</a> on the plight of war in his country – surpassed this for me.</p>
<h2>Why it is/was influential</h2>
<p>In recent years, the <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern">Tate Modern Gallery</a> in London has a room with the two massive pieces of Leon Golub’s <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/golub-vietnam-ii-t13702">“Vietnam II”</a> (1973) and Dia al-Azzawi’s <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/al-azzawi-sabra-and-shatila-massacre-t14116">“Sabra and Shatila Massacre”</a> (1983). Both pieces, like Picasso’s “Guernica” (1937), deal with the trauma and devastation of conflict and war in very different contexts. Golub’s concerns the American invasion of Vietnam and Azzawi’s the murder of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in Lebanon. </p>
<p>Looking at these works, I often thought about how Feni’s work was part of the dialogue of political unrest and human suffering on display. But while Golub, Azzawi and Picasso’s works all communicate feelings of chaos, conflict and trauma, Feni’s work has always stood out for the feeling of insanity that he visualises metaphorically.</p>
<p>In Feni’s painting we see a scene dominated by various animal and pseudo-human figures. A double-headed cow turns its back on us while it suckles a child at its teats. A grotesque naked squealing human figure, head a-kilter, seems to be splitting from itself with a third leg. Two groping figures seem to see each other and are alarmed. Another strange-armed figure is seated at a table as if awaiting a meal, while he seems to be begging at the same time. Yet another of these figures seems to be the harbinger of doom – perhaps one of the four biblical horsemen except his steed seems to be more of a comical cow. </p>
<p>Other animals (cows, ducks, cat, fowl) roam the landscape. These figures are stark white against a darkened background which contains repetitions of this maddened scene (as well as wandering figures). It is a visualisation perhaps of the seven deadly biblical sins, except there is no god to judge or save. Can this abyss be likened to our unconscious, the residual in which we seem to be a chaotic folk, a scene in which rational actions are furthered into the insane? </p>
<p>Human beings make art. We reason. We have evolved beyond the basic needs of survival. But in Feni’s “African Guernica” we see exactly the tensions of an artist commenting on the insanity of reason which results in the oppression of one human being by another. </p>
<p>It was done in 1967 when the world was contesting race, gender, sexuality and neo-colonialisms. One assumes that Feni is commenting on colonial racism that by this time has become institutionalised as <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/apartheid-and-reactions-it">apartheid</a> in South Africa. European colonial-modernist racist propaganda functioned on the rationalisation that certain groups of human beings were lower down the evolutionary chain. It operated on the “fact” of these groups’ proximity to animals, that could therefore be regarded as animals, as devoid of human thinking and feeling. </p>
<h2>Almost-but-not-right</h2>
<p>Primitives were almost-but-not quite, almost-but-not-white, almost-but-not-right. Postcolonial theorist <a href="https://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/bhabha/mimicry.html">Homi K Bhabha</a> reminds us that the slippage of this “almost-but-not-quiteness” was not merely justification that allowed the denigration and economic exploitation of certain bodies. But that it was a desire, an imagination that allowed a distinction between a higher order and the lower order, gave a group of people’s its idea of itself through a “not-quiteness” of the Other. </p>
<p>This was a cultural supremacy that could enslave men and women and treat them as animals. It could create complex systems of colonial order across the globe in order to claim and access natural resources, including bodies. This supremacy could systematically control, segregate and annihilate millions of people. </p>
<p>It is not just the heinousness of the act of war and the resultant trauma that is atrocious for Feni living in a legislated system of human degradation. It is also the very mindsets and societal values that lead to a warped society where we no longer can separate human from animals. A society where animals may seem more humane than the folks they are meant to serve.</p>
<p>The stark whitened figures which are visually disjunctive with their background should read as “positive” images – white against black. And yet one wonders if they are rather voids, an outline of a thing that has become distorted in its “thing-ness”? </p>
<p>And what to say of the darkened figures in the abyss? Are they the colonised man that repeats at a distance actions which are not his own as psychoanalyst Frantz Fanon eulogises in “<a href="http://abahlali.org/files/__Black_Skin__White_Masks__Pluto_Classics_.pdf">Black Skin, White Masks</a>”?</p>
<h2>Why it is still relevant</h2>
<p>In a darkened Rhodes University Theatre in July 2016 a <a href="https://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/events/animal-farm/">new staging</a> of “<a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100011h.html">Animal Farm</a>” directed by Neil Coppen, features a cast of six young black South African women (Mpume Mthombeni, Tshego Khutoane, MoMo Matsunyane, Mandisa Nduana, Khutjo Bakunzi-Green and Zesuliwe Hadebe). <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/orwell_george.shtml">George Orwell</a>’s 1945 story has become a classic, prophetic of the manner in which communist ideals devolve into capitalistic nightmares. The cast is utterly brilliant in their multiple roles – in the manner in which their bodies enact the animal characters and slide into present day critiques of democratic capitalistic governing models, in particular but certainly not limited to South Africa. </p>
<p>Several times during the play Feni’s “African Guernica” comes to mind as exploitation and human abasement, first as tragedy, then, in its repetition, turns to farce. Great for comedy, for theatre, for visual art metaphors, much less funny in reality.</p>
<p>The power of Feni’s “African Guernica” is not simply that he blatantly recognised the insanity of white colonial racist rule. Nor is it that he recognised how everyone in a warped system loses their “humanity”. It is also not only that he visualised local conditions of human oppression, nor that, even like Orwell’s text, it seems prophetic of days to come.</p>
<p>But rather, it is like the Goyas, Daumiers, Orwells and many other insightful creative intellectuals throughout time and in various societies, sensing the power and chaos that lurks in all of us to rationalise our ways as the next oppressors, the next supremacists, harbingers of truths, civilisation and order, even when madness unfolds before our very eyes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sharlene Khan receives funding from National Research Foundation, National Arts Council. </span></em></p>
‘African Guernica’ is an incredibly powerful work of art in many ways, importantly filling that space between the visible and the visible.
Sharlene Khan, Senior Lecturer of Art History and Visual Culture, Rhodes University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.