THE VAN GOGH'S BEDROOMS EXHIBITION

The current exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago of Van Gogh's Bedrooms just might be the most visited exhibition held there since the hugely popular Monet exhibition in 1995.

I couldn't believe the extremely long line outside the museum waiting to get in.  We were able to bypass this line because I had pre-purchased our tickets, but once inside we were not able to avoid the huge line to get into the exhibition.  I have been to several exhibitions at the Art Institute, but I have never seen such a crowd before. NOTE: we were there on a Saturday; I'm sure weekend days are much less crowded.

We finally entered the exhibition, and were pleasantly surprised non-flash photography was allowed. This must be a new policy. At every other special exhibition I have been to photography wasn't allowed basically because the host museum has the other paintings lent to them for the exhibition and they can't be responsible for them. 

Here are my highlights of the exhibition:

Parisian Novels (1887) 
Private Collection

This painting was the highlight! As it is from someone's private collection I had never seen even a photograph of it. The pink, blue and yellow color palette makes it so recognizable as a Van Gogh masterpiece. It is just a gorgeous painting.

Hospital at St. Rémy (1889)
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles 

This painting is one of two large landscapes showing the trees in the garden and the asylum façade behind them. Consciously or not, Van Gogh used the same color palette for this building as he did in his famous Yellow House (yellow building, green shutters, red roof).

Corner of the Asylum and the Garden with Heavy Sawed-Off Tree (1889)
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany

Van Gogh used "...a combination of red ocher, of green saddened with grey, of black lines that define the outlines", a combination he believed emphasized the emotional impact of this painting. Van Gogh used his time at the asylum to advance and refine the symbolic power of his painting.

Entrance to the Public Gardens in Arles (1888)
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

This painting depicts the view of the public garden located across the street from Van Gogh's yellow house in Arles.

Gauguin's Chair (1888)

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Since photography is not allowed at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, I didn't have the opportunity to photograph this masterpiece when I visited in 2010.

Van Gogh's Chair (1888)

National Gallery of Art, London, England

Yet another Van Gogh painting I had not seen before. This is the companion painting to the above painting. Van Gogh painted both during the few weeks he and Gauguin lived and painted together in Arles.

Houses at  Auvers (1890)

Toledo Museum of Art

I remember seeing this painting during my visit to the Toledo Museum of Art. Working in a hamlet in the western part of Auvers, Van Gogh painted this small cluster of dwellings nestled among the walled gardens and trees.  He varied his brushstrokes in order to call attention to difference between the tiled roof and the other thatched roofs.

View of the Asylum with a Pine Tree
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

I don't recall seeing this painting during my visit to the Musée d'Orsay several years ago.  It is one of dozens of works Van Gogh painted while sitting in the gardens of the asylum in St. Remy.

Eugene Boch

Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Van Gogh wanted to decorate the walls of the Yellow House with portraits. Boch was a Belgian impressionist painter and one of the few friends Van Gogh met while in Arles.

Self-Portrait (1889)

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Van Gogh painted this self-portrait while in the asylum. None of the other patients were willing to sit as a model for him. He is posed in this way because his left ear was disfigured from his self-mutilation the previous December.

Then, of course, there were the three "Bedrooms":

The Bedroom (October 16-17, 1888)

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Van Gogh painted this first version to decorate the Yellow House in anticipation of the arrival of Gauguin to Arles. Note that the two portraits I posted above are included in this painting on the right wall above the bed.

The Bedroom (September 5, 1889)
Art Institute of Chicago

The second version was painted while Vincent was a patient at the asylum in St. Rémy.  The first painting had been slightly damaged in a flood in Arles; Van Gogh's brother, Theo, thought Vincent should make another copy before repairs were made to first painting in case something bad occurred. Note how Van Gogh changed the portraits hanging above the bed.

The Bedroom (September 28, 1889)
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

In a letter to his brother Theo, Vincent explained what had inspired him to paint these pictures: he wanted to express the tranquility, and bring out the simplicity of his bedroom using the symbolism of colors. The bright colours were meant to express absolute ‘repose’ or ‘sleep’. Thus, he described: "the pale, lilac walls, the uneven, faded red of the floor, the chrome-yellow chairs and bed, the pillows and sheet in very pale lime green, the blood-red blanket, the orange-colored wash stand, the blue wash basin, and the green window", stating "I wanted to express absolute repose with these different colors".  Van Gogh's three versions of this composition are the only record he made of the interior of the Yellow House.

Van Gogh's Bedrooms is on view at the Art Institute of Chicago until May 10. For more information, click here.

Thank you for visiting.

A Great Europe Trip Planner

All photos were taken by me at the Art Institute of Chicago. Unauthorized use is prohibited.

A FEW REMAINING DUTCH MASTERPIECES

It seems as if the Dutch collection at the National Gallery of Art is never ending.

In this masterpiece, purchased by Andrew Mellon in 1921, and given to the museum as part of his founding gift, Rembrandt portrays Lucretia in utter anguish, right before her act of suicide.

Lucretia (1664) by Rembrandt van Rijn

The painting below is unusual in that the costume is executed in a manner quite different from the face; whereas the facial features are modeled with delicate nuance, the costume is hinted at with a variety of bold techniques. Rembrandt’s portraits generally do not show such markedly different techniques in the face and the costume. This and other stylistic considerations are sufficient to remove the painting from Rembrandt's own oeuvre, but instead consider it painted by one of his students.

Portrait of Rembrandt (1650) by Rembrandt workshop

Jan Lievens is among the most fascinating, but least known Dutch artists of 17th-century Leiden and Amsterdam. He was a child prodigy, creating outstanding paintings before the age of 12. Many of his paintings have been attributed to his colleague Rembrandt which may explain why Lievens has not received the same acclaim now as he did during his own lifetime.

Bearded Man with a Beret (1630) by Jan Lievens

Below is yet another privately-owned painting gratefully on loan to the museum. Jan Lievens was born in 1607 which means he was only 22 or 23 years old when he did these two paintings.
 
Self-Portrait (1629-1630) by Jan Lievens

 


As the most important of the Utrecht Caravaggisti, the name given to Dutch painters who traveled to Italy to study Caravaggio's chiaroscuro technique, ter Brugghen was instrumental in bringing the Italian artist’s style back to the Netherlands. This painting was another work that was restituted back to its original pre-WWII owners in 2008. The purchase of this painting by the museum in 2009 was a highlight since became the first Caravaggisti painting in the museum's permanent collection.
 
Bagpipe Player (1624) by Hendrick ter Brugghen

NOTE: The museum's website recently launched their NGA Online Editions, beginning with Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century by Gallery curator of Northern Baroque paintings Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. NGA Online Editions will ultimately document more than 5,000 paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts in the nation's collection. Check out more at: 

http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/research/online-editions.html

The National Gallery of Art is located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets along Constitution Avenue.

• Admission is always FREE.
• Open Monday-Saturday: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
• Open Sunday: 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
• Closed on December 25 and January 1. 

All photos in this blog post were taken by me during my visit in September, 2013.

DUTCH STILL LIFES AND GENRE PAINTINGS

17th century Dutch genre paintings show individuals in scenes of everyday life such as letter writing, eating, drinking, or making music.

Pieter de Hooch, the most highly regarded genre painter of all, excelled in the depiction of people going about their daily lives, be it inside their houses or in urban courtyards. His use of light and color in interior scenes has been compared to the work of Johannes Vermeer, his Delft colleague.

The National Gallery of Art has two of his paintings:

A Dutch Courtyard (1660) by Pieter de Hooch

The Bedroom (1660) by Pieter de Hooch

During the nine years he spent in Haarlem, Jan Steen created many of his greatest paintings, including a number of large, complex scenes of families and merrymakers that contained lessons in morality.

 The Dancing Couple (1663) by Jan Steen

Despite the ongoing merriment in the painting above, Steen used subtle references such as cut flowers and broken eggshells to warn the viewer about the transience of sensual pleasures.

The Prayer Before the Meal (1660) by Jan Steen

 

































The Jan Steen painting above is actually privately owned. In 2012, this painting was sold for over $9,000,000 as part of the Old Master paintings sale from the private collection at England's Sudeley Castle. At the time it was considered one of the finest paintings from the Dutch Golden Age remaining in private hands. Thank you to the buyer who lent it to the National Gallery for the public to see.

Banquet Piece with Mince Pie (1635) by Willem Claesz Heda

When the National Gallery purchased this still life painting at auction in 1991, the curators thought the painting may have been cut because of the close proximity of the oyster to the left edge of the painting. After receiving the painting the curator decided to take the painting out of the frame to check to see if the painting had been cut and surprisingly discovered not only had the painting not been cut, but it had also never been relined. This is a rarity in a painting this old.

Three other Dutch still lifes:

Still Life with Fruit (1675) by Jacob van Walscapelle

Although there is little known about his career, Jacob van Walscapelle was an accomplished still life painter. This painting measures just 16 inches by 14 inches, but it shows an elaborate composition that is usually found in larger still life paintings.

Van Walscapelle’s abundant still lifes reflect the influence of Jan Davidsz de Heem, who is considered one of the greatest Dutch still life painters. De Heem’s compositions were even more complex with large compositions of bouquets and garlands of flowers, baskets of fruit, and various motifs such as glasses, insects, and drapery.
 
The painting below is another privately-owned painting on loan to the gallery. Thank you to all private collectors for allowing the public to see the beautiful paintings you own when you lend them to public museums.

Still Life with Fruit,Oysters and Wine (1655) by Jan Davidsz de Heem

Little is known about Adriaen Coorte except that he created about one hundred paintings between 1683 and 1707. In contrast to De Heem’s elaborate compositions, Coorte's paintings were small and simply composed.

Still Life with Aspargus and Red Currants (1696) by Adriaen Coorte

I have one more blog post with a few remaining paintings from the Dutch collection.

The National Gallery of Art is located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets along Constitution Avenue.

• Admission is always FREE.
• Open Monday-Saturday: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
• Open Sunday: 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
• Closed on December 25 and January 1. 

All photos in this blog post were taken by me during my visit in September, 2013.