Van Gogh, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Van Gogh: Face to Face
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 
July 2 - September 24, 2000

Van Gogh: Face to Face, on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is the first comprehensive museum exhibition devoted to the full range of Vincent van Gogh’s achievements in portraiture.  Featuring approximately 80 drawings and paintings generously lent from private collections and museums around the world, Van Gogh: Face to Face breaks new ground, revealing the artist’s fascination with the human form.  The exhibition, which is on view in the Museum’s Gund Gallery, is organized chronologically, beginning with early drawings (many of which have never been on view in the United States) of the urban poor and peasants of van Gogh’s native Netherlands.  Following van Gogh from the Netherlands to France, Van Gogh: Face to Face explores the artist’s transformation as he is exposed to the Parisian avant-garde, adopting impressionist and pointillist techniques, and finally as he surpasses these movements, bringing his work to the brink of modern art. 

Born in 1853 in Groot-Zundert, the Netherlands, the son of a Dutch Reformed pastor, van Gogh made his first foray into the art world in his youth, when he served as a clerk in art galleries initially in the Hague, then in London and Paris. In 1877, he began theological studies in Amsterdam and from1879-80, van Gogh served as an evangelist to oppressed miners in the Borinage coal-mining region of Belgium.  It was not until 1880 that van Gogh decided to abandon his religious endeavors and devote himself to becoming an artist.

The Hague, January 1882 – 1883

Van Gogh moved to The Hague, the country’s most dynamic artistic center, in 1882.  Although the artist was given a monthly stipend from his brother, Theo, he could not afford to hire professional models.  This gallery captures the models van Gogh could employ: aged men known as old pensioners or “orphan men” and other urban poor.  In drawings such as Orphan Man with Top Hat, 1882 (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) and The Wounded Veteran, 1882 (Fogg Art Museums, Cambridge), van Gogh conveys the inherent dignity of these unfortunate men.

While living in The Hague, van Gogh became friendly with Clasina Hoornik, called Sien, a poor seamstress and onetime prostitute. Sien and her children moved in with the artist and van Gogh began depicting her, her mother, her younger sister and her children in his drawings.  These moving works, such as Sien with Cigar Sitting on the Floor near Stove, 1882 (Kröller- Müller Museum, Otterlo) and Young Girl in an Apron, 1883 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), capture the sadness and emotional poverty of the sitters.  They occupy a central place in the collection of somber character studies van Gogh drew during this period.

Nuenen, 1883 – 1885

During his time in Nuenen, van Gogh committed himself to the belief that peasants working the land were the true subjects of modern art, an attitude embodied in the work of Jean-François Millet (1814 – 1875). Van Gogh produced many works with this theme in mind including dark, complex renderings such as Peasant Woman with Red Bonnet, 1885 ( Van Gogh Museum) and Head of a Peasant, 1884 (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney). Eventually these character likenesses led to van Gogh’s first masterpiece, the monumental The Potato Eaters (1885), which remains on view in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.  After receiving negative criticism of this painting, the artist decided to move again and after a few months in Antwerp, he moved to Paris, never to return to his native country.

Paris, March 1886 – February 1888

Exposure to the avant-garde artists in Paris such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, and Georges Seurat, transformed van Gogh’s attitude toward color.  He abandoned the browns and grays of his Dutch paintings and adopted the Impressionist palette of bright, clear colors.  Following their example, he also applied paint using impressionist and pointillist techniques.  A stunning example of the new energy and vibrancy in his work is captured in Self-Portrait, 1887 (The Art Institute of Chicago), which demonstrates his interest in using small, dotted brushstrokes like his contemporaries Seurat and Paul Signac. Throughout much of his career, van Gogh could not afford to hire models and instead painted his own image many times.  In Boston, Van Gogh: Face to Face includes seven impressive self-portraits of the artist, the largest number of self-portraits on view during the exhibition’s tour.

Arles, February 1888 – 1889

The excitement and intensity of the Parisian art scene proved too much for van Gogh, so he moved to the more tranquil setting of Arles in the heart of Provence. The strong light and clear skies of the region inspired the artist.  And, just as Paris had freed him of using earth tones, his experience in Arles unlocked his passion for intense color.  Paintings such as Italian Woman 1887-88? (Musée d’Orsay, Paris) and The Zouave, 1888 (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) incorporate tones of vivid red, pink, yellow, violet and green and mirror van Gogh’s enthusiasm for his new home. 

In Arles, van Gogh became friendly with the postman Joseph Roulin and his wife Augustine.  The artist painted them and their three children more frequently than any sitters other than himself.  In the Boston viewing of Van Gogh: Face to Face, there are 17 Roulin portraits¾the greatest number of Roulin portraits ever on view in an exhibition¾including seven versions of The Postman Joseph Roulin.  Representing the Roulin family became one of van Gogh’s most ambitious projects; the artist wrote to his brother Theo, “But I have made portraits of a whole family…if I manage to do this whole family better still, at least I shall have done something to my liking and something individual.”  Of all the people he painted, van Gogh expressed the greatest enthusiasm for Joseph Roulin, who continued to visit the artist after he was hospitalized in Arles. 

While living in Arles in 1888, van Gogh wrote to his friends Émile Bernard and Gauguin, urging each of them to send him a self-portrait, promising that he, in turn, would do the same.  Eventually, Gauguin traveled to Arles to live and paint with van Gogh.  The artists worked together for two months before their relationship became strained.  The situation culminated in a violent argument on December 23.  That night van Gogh mutilated his left ear and was subsequently hospitalized.  During his remaining four months in Arles, he was plagued by recurring attacks of mental and physical illness, now generally thought to have been a form of epilepsy. 

St.-Rémy and Auvers, May 1889 – July 1890

Following the most devastating of his attacks in Arles, van Gogh committed himself to an asylum in nearby St.-Rémy in May 1889.  Van Gogh experienced four seizures at the asylum, during which he could not paint, but between the attacks he was able to work.  His access to models was extremely restricted, so once again he resorted to self-portraiture. Van Gogh: Face to Face showcases one of his two final self-portraits of 1889 (National Gallery of Art,Washington), about which he wrote, “They say…that it is difficult to know yourself¾but it isn’t easy to paint yourself either.  I am working on two portraits of myself at this moment…One I began the day I got up; I was thin and pale as a ghost.”

Van Gogh’s desire to be closer to Theo and his family, and to the artistic stimulus of Paris, soon overcame him.  He left the asylum in St.-Rémy and moved to Auvers, where he was under the care of Dr. Gachet, an amateur artist who was a serious collector of modern art and admired van Gogh’s paintings.

While there, van Gogh explored the nearby countryside and painted the local inhabitants, including Adeline Ravoux, the daughter of his innkeeper. The portrait, Adeline Ravoux, 1890 (The Cleveland Museum of Art) captures the soulful gaze of the sitter and conveys the emotion and personality that van Gogh deemed essential to portraiture. 

Van Gogh’s exhilaration and extraordinary productivity were short-lived.  On July 27, 1890, the painter went alone into the countryside and shot himself in the chest.  Despite severe injury, he struggled back to his room but died two days later and was buried at Auvers.  Theo wrote to their mother, “Life was such a burden to him, but now, as often happens, everyone is full of praise for his talents.”

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON 
www.mfa.org