Collectie-item

Van Gogh Face to Face: The Portraits

Instelling/bron: Van Gogh Village Museum

First published on the occasion of the exhibition Van Gogh Face to Face (Detroit/Boston/Philadelphia) in 2000-2001. Six original essays by leading art historians discuss the key aspects of van Gogh's portraits at different stages of his career. George Keyes begins by setting the paintings in the context of Dutch art, demonstrating the formative influence of masters such as Rembrandt and Frans Hals. Lauren Soth discusses the stark but carefully finished drawings made by van Gogh during his early years in The Hague. George Shackelford examines the pictures made during van Gogh's stay in Paris, his first works to show the influence of the Impressionists and of contemporaries such as Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec. In Arles in the south of France, van Gogh entered a great period of feverish productivity, and his portraits -- of peasants, villagers, and himself -- are among his most powerful pictures. Roland Dorn examines the major works, in particular the revolutionary sequence of portraits of the Roulin family in which van Gogh's experimentation with color is brought to fruition. After his breakdown, van Gogh moved first to an asylum in St. Remy and then to Auvers, a small village north of Paris. Judy Sund discusses the portraits van Gogh painted as he struggled to keep his sanity, including the famous pictures of Dr. Gachet and the final haunting self-portraits. Joseph Rishel concludes by examining the impact of van Gogh's work on his contemporaries and his pervasive influence on later artists such as Matisse, Picasso, Munch, and Francis Bacon. Interspersed with the essays is a detailed, four-part chronology of the painter's life, beautifully illustrated with both his portraits and other important paintings.