Van Gogh comes to America?

Did Van Gogh come to America?

No. He did not, but the first Van Gogh picture was purchased in America by the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1922. And for its 100 year celebration, Detroit gathered a 74 picture retrospective of Van Gogh’s almost 40-some years as his work began to be taken seriously and exhibited in America. The DIA show “Van Gogh in America” does an impressive job of conflating chronology and trajectory. A new twist, however, is to attempt to normalize Van Gogh somewhat, from the romantic, unpredictable Hollywood version as depicted by Kirk Douglas’s portrayal in Lust for Life to an artist with just ongoing mental issues. The guide opines”…publications [ such as Julius Meier-Graefe] were already promoting myths that sensationalized the artist’s personal life( p.36)”

The show begins allegorically as we view the first of the portraits, where Van Gogh is, as his presence is in the US – absent. No one is sitting on the woven chair in the first picture we meet in the exhibition, but we do note a tobacco pouch, a pipe and nearby a bag of onions. There’s a sense that the artist has just left the room, but the whiffs of tobacco call to mind his well studied face. As we move through the exhibit, there are actual physical portraits of the man such as Self-Portrait, 1887.

In the first, the features are recognizable and he appears to stand tall and confident, meeting our eyes even reproachfully. In the next self portrait, the impressive purchase by Detroit’s Institute of Arts , he is wearing his recognizable straw hat, also painted in 1887, but here he seems slightly bent, somewhat weary, thinner than in the former, even a little angry, and we notice the misalignment of his eyes. Perhaps this expression suggests what we have come to associate with Van Gogh’s erratic mental state. From the earlier portrait’s solid backdrop, this work displays the familiar multicolour strokes, the Seurat colour that encircle the head. Within a year, there has been a shift.

Much like the first empty chair that connoted the artist’s presence, there are other paintings without the artist. He is represented by his clogs in A Pair of Leather Clogs, 1889 as well as worn leather shoes in A Pair of Boots, 1887. Although the official listening guide describes these later work boots as “ well loved and worthy of paint”, our reaction works against that comment. The shiny nails in the shoes, the rough well worn leather suggests utilitarian necessity to eek out a living, not objects of adoration.

I’m also recalling critic Griselda Pollock’s interpretation of the shoes as Marxist symbols, symbolic of a man of the people, a worker.We know at this time Van Gogh had to work, went into the mines, ate with the diggers in underground caves who welcomed him -initially. He wrote that the same hands that dug the potatoes from the ground gathered them to their mouths as food. But soon, sensing Van Gogh as strange, they experienced discomfort in his presence. He departed his parents’ town of Nuenen, in the Netherlands, again searching for a better fit for himself. These paintings that reflect the subterranean living spaces of the labourers were criticized for their dark earthy colours and their almost pig or dog -like faces. Far from idealized as fellow artist Millet’s romanticized sowers, of a similar time, we’ve come to associate Van Gogh’s workers as agrarian producers, their hands, gnarled, faces bony, expressions quiet, downcast.

We are reminded too of Van Gogh’s background: a fellow consistently unsuccessful at his work, as an apprentice for an art dealer in The Hague and London; then an unpopular teacher; a lay preacher in the mines in The Netherlands, working with these “ potato eaters”, wherein his sanctimonious attitude rendered him poorer and more depressed than the workers themselves; an often rejected lover; a ne’er do well whose livelihood was provided by his brother Theo; his move to the south of France to recreate Japan in France with other artists, the subsequent confrontations with Gauguin that preceded the incident with his ear; and the final psychiatric confinement that climaxed with a gunshot wound, ending his life. To even try to normalize this life feels disingenuous.

That Van Gogh was brilliant in his draftsmanship, that he was pivotal in his role in modern art and that his use of thick paint, elongated emotional strokes and combination of color could evoke strong emotional reaction is undeniable. His technical prowess in using the materials that create art as capable of expression, themselves, precedes the artistic output of The Abstract Impressionists such as Morris Louis,Jackson Pollock or de Kooning.

However, to construe him as less than a misfit surprises. Was his mental instability and agitation translated into his art? Some suggest that he had ingested lead poisoning from his paints. Others surmise it may have been Meniere’s disease or ringing in his ears that plagued him. Bipolar? Epilepsy? Melancholy? Syphilis? Epilepsy? Almost all diagnosed and treated in his life time.

Or perhaps, if we adopt the DIA’s narrative, his trajectory resembles that of many artistic ingenues, moving through diverse stages, Van Gogh’s first gleaned in Flanders, then France, his painting unaccepted or recognized as breakthrough for its newness- but having absorbed elements of Impressionism, Pointillism, and even Expressionism. We know of his thoughts that grapple with life because he expressed himself continually and poetically, recording his angst to his brother Theo in numerous reflective letters. Van Gogh, initially did not understand what was wrong with him, but does identify a “mental or nervous fever or madness, I do not know quite what to say or how to name it” , he wrote.

The response to Van Gogh’s art as to the man himself was not direct. And the reaction to purchasing his art in America, and France as well, was very slow, even though Albert Barnes in America in 1912 was beginning to collect European art based on input from Parisienne galleries . There were no takers from the Armory Show which opened in New York in 1913. Yet outside of Philadelphia, Theodore Pitcairn in Bryn Athyn, home to the New Church, was interested in Van Gogh’s sowers as representative of spiritual journey and purchased his interpretation of The Sower: “ …Van Gogh had an affinity for the subject of the sower as a symbol of regeneration, life, and the spread of Christianity.”( program guide).Minister Pitcairn purchased three works by Van Gogh, another entitled Sorrow of Sien, Van Gogh’s friend and prostitute. Of the sixty- seven works organized by the New York’s Montross Gallery in 1920, Pitcairn was the only buyer. And, in 1935-6 MOMA was the first museum to actually arrange a travelling show of his work.

Interestingly, in DIA’s Van Gogh in America exhibition, they display Frank Stella’s Battle of Lights, Coney Island’s Mardi Gras, an incredible abstract painting of shape, color, with an occasional recognizable Ferris wheel. It was bought by the museum along with Van Gogh’s self portrait in 1922, yet , both patrons and institutions at that time felt Van Gogh’s style made them feel “ uncomfortable “ and preferred Stella’s whirling bits and shapes to Van Gogh’s totally recognizable landscapes of fields, people and rooms.

What makes Van Gogh’s paintings unique is his almost three- dimensional treatment of surface. Also exhibited in the DIA’s show along with Stella are works by Cezanne, Gauguin and Matisse wherein paint is applied smoothly. Van Gogh’s treatment is unique, thick and in his Roses,1890, the layers of paint are so loaded that no lines or varying tone application is required to define petals as the impasto moves into the realm of sculpturesque, casting its own tiny shadows, again foreshadowing a future modernity that focuses on the power of materials to make art.

The guide also reminds us not to accept the image of Van Gogh as a loner. The DanceHall of Arles,1888, a painting filled with people might have come from Toulouse Lautrec’s hand. He spent time with Paul Signac and Emile Bernard, all friends. And that far from being solitary, in Paris in 1886-7, Van Gogh was very aware of art and artists, visiting cafes and galleries like Durand -Ruel (1831–1922), one of the most influential contemporary art dealers that supported artists by selling their work before there was a market. Many cafes and galleries in Paris were exhibiting the influx of Japanese prints and goods. In 1884 and 1885, however, when Theo showed Durand-Ruel some of his brother’s drawings, such as The Potato Eaters, the dealer was unimpressed.

Yet in 1876, Van Gogh had bought etchings of Jean-François Millet’s The Angelus at Durand-Ruel: a dark work with tones not unlike his own rejected ones. Living with brother Theo in Montmartre, their bond deepened. Later it was Theo’s widow, Jo in 1891 who received his estate that included the majority of brother Vincent’s letters and works.

In Paris, Van Gogh was well aware of artistic trends and cross pollination. We notice his colour lightens in response to the Impressionists who moved their easels outside to gather the impact of light on their paintings, and we note his expanded palette and fresher colors, dabs of blues, those greens and bright yellows and its complement/ opposite, purple as seen in the exhibition’s Grapes, Lemons, Pears and Apples ,1887.In this painting, the surface of the tablecloth appears to whirl around the fruits, likely influenced by Cezanne ;and his pronouncement that there are no lines in nature. As well, we observe the pointillist brushwork associated with Seurat and Signac.

Van Gogh’s emotions were said to dictate his palette as he painted according to his feelings. I recall learning in art class so many years ago that he often reversed the traditional associations of color. He knew of the theories of color opposites, the popular theories of Chevreuil ,’ that formed the basis of Delacroix’s color theory , widely adopted…‘wholeheartedly’ by Van Gogh (Vellekoop 248):He observed how the Pointillists used those color complements, believing they combined on the viewers’ retina, those artists also avoiding the use of black totally. These artists rethought color application, not necessarily selecting colors that matched reality : as revealed by Van Gogh’s color selections.

We can also notice the impact of Matisse’s blocking and use of his signature greens and turquoise as we view Van Gogh’s The Novel Reader in the DIA show and recall his passion for reading as he adds books into both portraits of L’Arlesienne, 1888-89 and 1890. The DIA guide informs us that he further extended the work of the Impressionists in his own curvy lines noted in the beard of Joseph Roulin, the Postman: apparently a breakthrough.Those strokes move away from the shorter lines of the Impressionists and direct the eye around the canvas, playing with the viewers’ notion of how a painting should appear.

In terms of friendships, in the south of France, Van Gogh was befriended by the Postman, Roulin his family, people who posed for him, and later landlady, Madame Ginoux. His painting of Lullaby of Madame Augustin Roulin Rocking a Cradle( La Berceuse) 1889 is a stand out. The flatness of the figure, the flowered wall paper, the contrasting colour opposites of red and green that fill our space connote thoughtfulness, introspection. Reminiscent of Van Gogh as the draftsman and the fingers of The Potato Eaters, the hands of the Berceuse draw the eye. Van Gogh is observing his subjects deeply, perhaps affectionately, always compassionately.

Thinking weather in the south of France resembled that of Japan and influenced by the Japonaserie in Paris, Van Gogh moved south, hoping to create an artist’s colony there. He invited Gauguin. Yet, the only reference to Gauguin’s impact on Van Gogh in the accompanying DIA booklet is to state that Van Gogh “ fled” their Yellow House in Arles, seeking psychiatric treatment a few months after Gauguin’s visit. Gauguin insisted that Van Gogh “ Dream before nature, “ a concept violently rejected by Van Gogh who insisted on drawing what he literally saw existing physically before him. The two fought continually over practice.The crushed dream of creating Japan in the south of France with his fellow artist is so dashed that a frantic Vincent in response to a prostitute’s rejection and Gauguin’s non-stop goading was to do himself violence.

And beyond his contemporaries at this time, Gauguin did impact on Van Gogh who painted Madame Ginoux in regional dress as , L’ Arlesienne:Madame Joseph-Micelles Ginoux( Marie-Julien, 1848-1911) 1888-9. We are reminded of Gauguin and his paintings of Breton women.Later, according to the guide, Van Gogh will rework Gauguin’s L’ Arlesienne, Madame Ginoux, 1890 taking “ creative liberties”, and inserting himself into the composition by adding his French translations of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and A Christmas Carol( p31 of Guide)

The final paintings in the exhibition in Detroit represent an intense mature Van Gogh style and palette, foremost, the thickly painted curving lines, the anonymity of posed people such as in his Bank of the Oise at Auvers, 1890, numerous versions of The Olive Trees,Stairway at Auvers, Bank of the Oise at Auvers, 1853-90, Poppy Field, 1890. There is so much richness in the compositions, color and composition. Belying his mental angst, his torment, these works suggest a balm to the soul, away from the confusion and madness of the world, a place of respite. But like the color associations that were exchanged, what we had assumed were cool blues or hot reds, the opposites that absorbed Van Gogh’s mind.

We might question whether the stairway Van Gogh painted in Stairway at Auvers was a path towards death as others merely strolled by unconcerned by a fellow descending, a man with a cane going down?. Once more, was Van Gogh, the loner, uncomfortable in the presence of others? Is he attempting to escape madness and demise. “My life,” Van Gogh wrote is,”restless and anxious. He wrote to Theo in April30, 1889, “ Without your friendship I would be sent back without remorse to suicide, and however cowardly I am, I would end up going there.”

“Van Gogh suffered from mental illness, but his artwork is not about the illness itself or the experience of being a person with a mental illness. Therefore, the artwork should not be pathologized in order to study an artist, who willingly sought treatment for his mental instability,” states an Insiders Guide to .Paris

So perhaps, in the end, the Detroit Institute of Arts has it right, avoiding the story of Van Gogh’s persistence of maladies that tormented him. The DIA is focused on the collection and celebration of the art of Van Gogh, its final acceptance and spread in America. We have the paintings, and like other great mercurial artists, whether their mental states, vivid personalities contributed or not, the works are magic and we take them into our own consciousness and we must decide for ourselves.

 

 

 

Vellekoop, Marije. Van Gogh at work. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013. Print.

 

 

 

 

 

A Ramble on 19th Century Artists and Critics

Ottawa in the summer –even if the weather is less than summery- is a delight: markets, galleries, the joy of walking by Parliament Hill. For me, an unexpected pleasure last spring was the show at the National Gallery that focused on Gustave Dore.

Doré aspired to be the Michelangelo of the nineteenth century, and was respected as illustrator and engraver of Rabelais, Shakespeare, Perrault, Cervantes and the Bible. Yet he was frustrated by his status, desiring to be taken seriously as an artist, feeling rejected and devalued by French society, especially in the salons that found his oil paintings wanting.

Remember as well, the Impressionists were also on the rise during the mid-19th century and much of their work was scorned by the Academy. Dore was embittered by the lukewarm critical reception that his paintings and sculpture received. Considered prodigious even as a child, he did possess talent. Established in 1725 the official art exhibition, the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France was the mark of approval all artists sought. Everyone in Paris, from the silk top hats to the laundresses attended: to view the works deemed acceptable for the show.

While the work of Monet, Cassatt, Seurat was breaking new ground in technique by illuminating canvases with dazzling light and fresh colour, and demonstrating new techniques ( the neo-impressionists believed in using dots –much like digitalizing colours; and the Impressionists painted brightly, local scenes out of doors), theirs was likewise dismissed by the salon although the odd Manet, Renoir, and Degas were included with the traditional classist pieces .

For me, Dore’s work forms an extension of the celebrated painters of his time such as Bouguereau, his cupids, and the mythological figure Venus, Dante and Virgil, these topics and images evident in Dore’s exhibition in Ottawa, themes well accepted and that echo back to the German Caspar David Friedrich, his allegories and notion of the Sublime. Friedrich’s work goes beyond to idealize the British landscape artists such as Constable and Gainsborough and even the inscrutable J.M. Turner.

However the Academies did in fact nod to the Pre-Raphaelites in England, and in France, Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet, although the latter’s was tinged with nostalgia, along with the brilliance of Édouard Manet: displaying their works for exhibition. Mary Cassatt like many others despaired of the rejection of her pieces, but was warmed by Edward Degas’s suggestion to paint for herself.

However, more often than not, it was the landscapes, allegories, notions of the sublime and sentimental religious paintings that won approval by the Academie as opposed to social realism. Interestingly with social and economic upheavals in society, and culture becoming accessible for all classes, everyone flocked to the salon. Viewers themselves, a new motif to establish their presence in a painting, was a new trend. Previously painting had been theorized as a window through which one gazed. Tissot’s opera attendees, the laundresses captured by Henri de Toulouse Lautrec’s, Renoir’s boating parties were all brash new subjects for painting. Degas’ pastels of the “petits rats” of ballet and the almost pinhole perceptions of women at their bath shocked the sensibilities of the art world, but confirmed the presence of a viewer both inside and out of these pieces.

In art, there are trends, often shifted by the critic’s diatribe: as suggested in Robin Oliveira’s novel, I Always Loved you. In a tense but powerful discussion between Emile Zola and Mary Cassatt, they clash on the power of whether words or paint exerts the stronger impact on mass audiences. I recall an art history class discussion in the 60’s that scorned Griselda Pollock’s psychological insights into Van Gogh’s painting of worn workboots, yet the same critic was the official voice of the AGO many years later.

Where the paintings of Matisse were once decried as being done by wild beasts or labeled “ fauves” by influential French art critic Louis Vauxcelles in the 1905 Salon d’Automne exhibit, we, the public now embrace and delight in his exotic design. Similarly Norman Rockwell, his work first presented in Saturday Evening Post first seen as capturing the homey quality of America and celebrating America with the 1943 Four Freedoms, later to be considered a kind of kitsch reproduced on teacups and acceptable for family display, is presently being reconsidered as a caustic commentary of the times. Examples cited showcase the integration of Ruby Bridges, a fourteen year old girl at William Franz School In New Orleans in 1960, her staunch attitude, her freshly starched clothes juxtaposing her deriders. So it seems, beauty or criticism resides in the reactions of the official perceiver, able with his or her words to provide interpretation, to sway, to make sense or cast aspersions.

Although Dore saw himself as an outsider of the elite and a misfit, he exists perhaps midway between the pack of accepted and those openly denigrated by the salons. Reading Richard Harris’s An Officer and A Spy casts light on the shallowness of French society. The wrongful conviction of Alfred Dreyfus exemplifies the frivolous , corrupt world where coverup, anti-Semitism and pretense stand in strong opposition to honesty and the truth. Likely it is in this way that some artists are the canaries in the mine shaft, willing to provoke or alternatively ignore the forces that hold and maintain society. The Kathe Kollwitzes, the Max Ernsts, the Daumiers, Ai Weiweis and certainly Pablo Picasso’s Guernica moved art far beyond technique to outright challenge and condemnation of the evils of their world.

Changing thinking occurs through words and images, educating and opening the doors to re-conceiving previous patterns. So said Emile Zola, “J’accuse.”

I’m not sure about Dore. I can admire his work, understand his angst as being overlooked, but I think again of Oliveria’s book and Degas’ advice to Marry Cassatt to paint for herself. He says,

“…Everyone will have an opinion of your work… they will claim that your style parts too much from standard taste… these are people who cannot even mix a color…But they ( the critics) will believe themselves right and influence the public for the worse. They will be wrong, of course. What I want you to understand is that they should not allow their ignorance to destroy you…”( Oliveira, I Always Loved You,2014,187)