The Real Van Gogh

"The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters" opens January 23rd at the Royal Academy in London -- the first van Gogh retrospective exhibition in Britain for quite some time -- and buzz is starting to build. Check out the excellent articles by Martin Gayford in the Times Online and by Mark Hudson in the Telegraph.

2010 also marks the 120th anniversary of Vincent's death in 1890. The newest issue of the New Yorker apparently has an article entitled "Van Gogh's Ear," which re-examines theories of his illness and suicide. I've not seen this yet but will soon.

I'm pleased that the republication of Vincent's letters this past October and the accompanying exhibition in Amsterdam, the new exhibition in London, and the anniversary are prompting reconsideration of van Gogh's place in art history and his identity as an artist. Let's put those mad-genius clichés to rest, already! The real van Gogh is far more complex and far more interesting.

Mining for Clues...

I was all set to blog today about the superb book "The Venus Fixers," until I read this article in today's Times Online: a teaser piece about a forthcoming article in January's Art Newspaper by art critic and van Gogh enthusiast Martin Bailey. In 2005, a superbly researched article by Bailey in Apollo magazine argued that van Gogh may have learned about his brother Theo's engagement the morning of 23 December 1888 and that this news may have been the 'final straw' that led to Vincent's breakdown and self-mutilation that night. (I was so convinced by his theory that I used it in "Sunflowers." Merci, Mr. Bailey!) Bailey's forthcoming article produces additional evidence to support this theory, via a new reading of the one of the first paintings Vincent produced after leaving the hospital early in the new year. "Still Life with Onions" (click image to enlarge) from January 1889 has been seen as a "demonstration piece" (in the words of Douglas Druick and Peter Zegers, in their "Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South" exhibition catalogue, p. 168) to prove Vincent's continued ability to paint and as a form of self-portrait, much like van Gogh had done in his famous Chair painting not long before. On the table we see onions (which Vincent in fact added in the background of his Chair painting), Vincent's pipe and tobacco pouch (also in the Chair painting), a lit candle (which appears in the Gauguin's Chair picture), a book about health, an empty bottle of wine, and a letter. (This painting makes a cameo appearance in "Sunflowers," by the way.)

Bailey's new article, of which the Times piece gives only a taste, evidently focuses on the letter depicted in the painting. The envelope is addressed to Vincent and must be from Theo. Bailey demonstrates that the "67" you see on the envelope indicates a post office in the Place des Abbesses, not far from where Theo lived. (Readers of "Sunflowers" know that by coincidence Rachel gains a connection to someplace in the Place des Abbesses late in the book. I can't help but giggle.) He also learned through his research that the special New Year's Day postmark seen on the envelope was placed on Paris mail from mid-December onward. Bailey argues that this letter in the painting is the very one Vincent received the morning of 23 December containing the news of Theo's marriage.

The Times article states, "It is known from a letter he [Vincent] wrote to Theo at the end of January 1889 that he had received what he called 'the much-needed money' on December 23." I scratched my head at this at first, because I didn't remember that detail from Bailey's 2005 article--because it's not there. Up until now, there's been no proof Vincent received a letter that day. That part of Bailey's original theory had to remain speculative. So I ran to my Brand New Shiny Set of Van Gogh Letters (I still need to do a proper review of this masterpiece set of books), and by golly, there IS a new piece of evidence, in the new translation of the letter Vincent sent Theo on 17 January 1889. A crucial difference in the new translation of one sentence in this letter versus the old translation we've all seen in English up until now. Clearly the Times article is leaving out this neato tidbit so as not to steal the fun from the Art Newspaper article, so I'm not going to give the game away either. But heehee hoho, Bailey's theory from 2005 seems poised to be right. Bravo!

I wait with eagerness for the full article...

Vincent the Blogger

The Van Gogh Museum once again shows their keen interest in twenty-first century technology/media by introducing a blog authored by...Vincent. At Van Gogh's Blog, VGM folks provide an excerpt from one of Vincent's letters accompanying a certain date. The most recent entry, from November 28th, gives a portion of one of Vincent's Antwerp letters...from 28 November 1885. A fun and creative way to introduce online audiences to the new translation of Vincent's letters.

While you're there, don't forget to download the IPhone App of van Gogh's letters...too bad I neither own an IPhone nor have the first notion how to work one...

The Coolest Website EVER

The Van Gogh Museum has unveiled their landmark website Vincent van Gogh: The Letters. Holy cow, this is one heckuva site! Free of charge, visitors can access the new and updated English translations of all van Gogh's correspondence, as well as annotated footnotes, pictures of the artworks associated with each letter, the texts in their original language, and scanned facsimiles of each page. It's much, if not all, the same content as the beautiful yet expensive bound volumes due to ship to stores and customers (me!!) any day now. With one notable exception: on a website, you can have search engines. Yesterday one of my seminar students was looking at the new site with me during an appointment to discuss her upcoming presentation, and for fun we typed "olive" into the keyword search (her presentation is on two of the Saint-Remy olive grove canvases)...presto! We found like magic all the letters in which Vincent discussed olive trees, and lots of other information she'll be able to use. Visitors can further sort the whole cache of letters by period, correspondent, and place.

I've been trying not to play with the new site too much, because a) I should be working; and b) I don't want to spoil the fun of opening the books when they arrive, but I've seen enough to say this is an invaluable resource for any van Gogh lover, student, or scholar. The design is beautiful -- the Dutch are known for their graphic design panache, and this site is no exception, with its clean lines, harmonious colors, and easy navigation. And the content, the product of 15 years' research by the Van Gogh Museum curators, is simply a treasure trove. Bravo!!

Gauguin Exhibition at the CMA

Alas, no van Gogh exhibitions opening this fall in the U.S., but opening Sunday October 4th is "Paul Gauguin: Paris 1889" at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The museum website describes the show thusly: "This landmark exhibition gathers about 75 paintings, works on paper, woodcarvings, and ceramics by Paul Gauguin and his contemporaries to explore how the artist created his signature style during the year 1889. Co-organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Paul Gauguin: Paris, 1889 re-creates on a smaller scale the radical independent exhibition that Gauguin organized with his artistic disciples on the grounds of the 1889 Exposition Universelle—a display of about 100 paintings now recognized as the first Symbolist exhibition in Paris."

The "radical independent exhibition" is the so-called Volpini show, which Gauguin organized together with fellow avant-garde artists Émile Bernard, Émile Schuffenecker, Charles Laval, Louis Anquetin, and a few others. It was conceived as a reaction to the French art exhibition at the Universal Exposition, which was limited only to Salon painters and similarly well-established artists. Gauguin chose as a venue for the exhibition the Café des Arts -- run by a Monsieur Volpini -- on the actual grounds of the Universal Exposition, thus thumbing his nose at the establishment. The exhibition ran from May through July 1889, included a small catalogue, and was seen by contemporary critics.

At this time, Vincent had just entered the asylum of Saint-Rémy. His brother Theo did not submit any of Vincent's work to the show, believing it to be an upstart and unseemly enterprise, and in fact did not tell Vincent about it. However, somehow Vincent did learn of it and mentioned it casually in a letter to Theo of early June. Theo responded, "At first I had said you would exhibit some things too, but they assumed an air of being such tremendous fellows that it made one sick...It gave one somewhat the impression of going to the Universal Exhibition by the back stairs" (T10). In his reply, Vincent agreed that it was probably best his work not be shown ("My not yet being recovered is reason enough") but defended Gauguin and Bernard: "It remains very understandable that for beings like them...it would be impossible to turn all their canvases to the wall until it should please people to admit them into something, into the official stew. You cause a stir by exhibiting in cafés" (LT595).

Gauguin himself learned of Theo's disapproval via their mutual friend Émile Schuffenecker. Writing from Pont-Aven in Brittany on June 10--where he'd gone after the show's opening--he defends the show and states, "I organized this little exhibition at the Universelle to show what can be done together and to demonstrate the possibilities." Unfortunately, we do not have Theo's reply to Gauguin.

"Paul Gauguin: Paris 1889" will be at CMA until 18 January 2010, after which it will travel to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Van Gogh the Writer

Buzz is starting to build about the publication next month of the new English translation of van Gogh's correspondence, the first comprehensive English translation since 1958 and the product of 15 years' work by the curators of the Van Gogh Museum. Today's Financial Times features a review of the six-volume edition, while the The Sunday Timesincludes a chatty review/commentary by Waldemar Januszcak, himself no stranger to things van Gogh. So far only the British press is jumping on this particular bandwagon, which is not surprising, given that the Royal Academy will be presenting a major exhibition on the theme of van Gogh's letters in spring 2010. Nearer in time will be the opening of the Van Gogh Museum's own exhibition on the letters, which takes place on 9 October. I expect van Gogh coverage will be steadily increasing in the next few weeks as the new edition of the letters gets more exposure. (Which as far as I'm concerned is awesome yet coincidental timing, but that's another story!)

Initial remarks about the new edition suggest that those looking for Big Revelations and Big Scandals in the inclusion of previously-omitted passages from van Gogh's letters are going to be disappointed. I admit, I would have loooooved the new research to have uncovered Dramatic Information about the prostitute Rachel, but I never really expected that! Rather, the new edition of the letters confirms what the Van Gogh Museum curators and other mythbusters (including me, in my small way) have been saying for years: that the solitary mad genius of van Gogh-ian mythology is not the Real Vincent. Disciplined, hard-working, well-read, knew-exactly-what-he-was-doing Vincent, that's the real Vincent. It's the Vincent I've come to know, and I'm looking forward to the six volumes showing up on my doorstep in a few weeks so that I can get to know him even better. I'll be posting my own review of the new edition once I've thoroughly checked it out.

At The Bookbinders!

The Van Gogh Museum announced on Facebook today that the six volume new edition of Van Gogh's letters is now at the bookbinders. They've posted photos of the stacks and stacks o'manuscripts at Flickr. (Photo of a sample set from Amazon.com.)

Somewhere in those stacks is the set that will come to ME in October, preordered months ago from Amazon. I'm totally geeking out here.

:-) :-)

The Real Van Gogh

There's been talk for a while now about a 2010 Van Gogh exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London -- and this week they made the formal announcement. "The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters" will run from 23 January to 18 April 2010 and is being described as the largest van Gogh show in Britain since 1968. A selection of 35 original letter manuscripts, lent by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, will be featured along with 65 paintings and 30 drawings from not only the VGM's collection but others in Europe and the United States. This seems to be a different exhibition than the VGM's "Van Gogh's Letters: The Artist Speaks," appearing in Amsterdam this fall, although both shows are intended to celebrate the VGM's long-awaited new edition of Vincent's correspondence.

The new exhibition is discussed online in articles in the Telegraph, the Guardian, and Bloomberg.com.

Boy, oh Boy!

Further musings about HNS are officially interrupted by the Van Gogh Museum's announcement today about the exhibition "Van Gogh's Letters: The Artist Speaks," which will be held at the VGM from 9 October 2009 to 3 January 2010. *120* of the original van Gogh letters from the museum's collection will be exhibited alongside paintings and drawings he wrote about. An additional three letters written to artist Emile Bernard will be on loan from the Pierpont Morgan Library. 340 total manuscripts, paintings, and drawings will be on view in the show, the largest devoted to Vincent's correspondence. Holy cow. The Plot to Get to Amsterdam After Fall Term Ends is now underway...

In other VGM news, the museum announced that a whopping 530,000 people visited the "Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night" exhibition during its Amsterdam showing. That's half a million people in three months, one of the best-attended shows in the VGM's history. Again I say it -- Holy cow. Vincent kicks attendance butt AGAIN!

Banner Year for Van Gogh Books

The Van Gogh Museum has just released their 2009 publications programme (download it at their website), and I might as well write them a big check right now for the things I plan to buy. It's going to be a banner year in van Gogh studies!

The "big one," the publication that has the potential to reshape our understanding of Vincent (oh! how my pulse races!), is the Five Volume, Completely Annotated, Fully Illustrated, In-Process-Since-1994 new edition of van Gogh's complete correspondence. 2500 pages! 2000 illustrations! It is set to be released in October 2009 (about the time of my own book, I love it), in conjunction with a special exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum showcasing actual letter manuscripts, and in English, Dutch, and French editions. All editions include the original text of all the letters in brand new translations, annotated commentary on each letter, and illustrations of all works of art discussed in the letters. The English edition is being released through Thames and Hudson, which I hope means it will be easily available via Amazon stateside. According to the VGM's publication programme, the cost is 300 Euros until January 2010, at which point price goes up to 350 Euros (price in US dollars not given). The volumes will also be available digitally through a special website.

What makes this publication exciting is that the letters will be included and translated as Vincent wrote them: no euphemisms (so his sometimes salty language will stay in), no amendments, and no excised passages. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger's original collection of the letters, quite understandably, left out some passages that might be sensitive to the family or that she felt might be otherwise inappropriate. What could those be?! (Ten bucks says I will be shouting "Gah! I want that in my novel! And it's too late!" many times while perusing the five volumes.)

As if that weren't enough to get me giddy, two more 2009 publications from the VGM will definitely make it to my bookshelf:
*Louis van Tilborgh and Ella Hendriks, Vincent van Gogh Paintings, 2: Antwerp and Paris, 1885-1888: the next volume of catalogues of the VGM's permanent collection. 500 pages, listed at 99 Euros. The recent volumes of the drawings catalogues have been available via Amazon, so this one may be too. Otherwise it can be purchased through the VGM website in autumn 2009.

*The latest volume in the slim-but-packed-with-good-research Van Gogh in Focus series, entitled "Van Gogh and Montmartre." These, unfortunately, are only available at the VGM or through its website. I have three of the five earlier titles, and they're terrific.

Happy Reading in 2009!

Vincent's Last Letter

Vincent's last letter to Theo was sent from Auvers-sur-Oise on 24 July 1890. (See a translation of the letter here.)

Piecing together the events of the last weeks of Vincent's life is difficult. His disjointed final letters to Theo reveal dispiritedness and anxiety about the future, and with good reason: when Vincent wrote his last letter, he believed Theo's position as manager of the Boulevard Montmartre branch of the Boussod & Valadon gallery was in jeopardy. Theo had asked for a raise (hence Vincent's reference to "those worthy gentlemen") and threatened to quit if he was not given one. Theo had the idea of opening his own gallery--an idea that Vincent disagreed with (and which fell apart when Theo's brother-in-law, Dries Bonger, withdrew financial support from the venture). The subtext of Vincent's July letters suggests he felt himself a burden on Theo, surely a factor in his decision to shoot himself on 27 July. However, there is no indication in this letter, nor in the draft version found in his pocket after he was wounded that he was contemplating suicide. He even asks for more paints as if planning to work as usual. Based on surviving evidence, his suicide does not appear to have been premeditated. That particular day, things may have proved to be too much.

Here is the irony. Vincent did not know--and never found out--that Theo settled matters with his bosses on 21 July. He decided to stay at the gallery and forfeit a raise. Theo wrote his wife Johanna that evening (she was in Amsterdam with her parents) to tell her the news, and he wrote his sister and mother 22 July to reassure them as well. But Theo's letter to Vincent from 22 July does not mention it. Instead Theo refers to an earlier, now-lost letter from Vincent, which evidently mentioned "domestic quarrels" between Theo and Johanna, and spends much of his letter trying to clarify matters. Why Theo did not tell Vincent about settling things with his job is genuinely mysterious. Did Theo underestimate Vincent's worry on the matter? Assume that Vincent would hear it from their mother or sister? Simply forget to mention it in focusing on the alleged "domestic quarrel"? (Theo's letters to Johanna reveal a similar puzzlement over Vincent's allegations.) Theo would not deliberately withhold the information to hurt Vincent--that much is clear from the concern expressed from Theo to Johanna about Vincent's health at this point, and from Theo's deep love for his brother in general.

Suppose Theo had told Vincent everything was fine at work and he had no need to worry. How differently would Vincent's last letter read? Worse to think about ... would it have *been* the last letter?

[For a recent analysis of the events leading up to Vincent's death, see the excellent compilation, "Brief Happiness: The Correspondence of Theo van Gogh and Jo Bonger" (Van Gogh Museum 1999) 42-44, and see too Theo and Johanna's letters to each other in the same volume. The Van Gogh Museum's new edition of the complete van Gogh correspondence, due to be released in late 2009, may shed further insight on events with new research.]