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November, 2001 Tragedy and Triumph at Arles: Van Gogh and Gauguin
Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South at the Art Institute of Chicago centers on the intimate friendship between the two troubled Titians of modern art. ![]() Few artists have ever seen life so intensely or realized their vision in such splendid fullness. Despite our familiarity with the work of these pioneers, until now it was impossible to actually see and enjoy in one show the harvest of this encounter. This definitive exhibit offers a week-by-week, and at times even a day-by-day chronicle of their artistic dialogue during the nine autumn weeks of 1888 when Paul Gauguin moved into the Yellow House [right] in Arles. Vincent van Gogh in 1880 was a 27-year-old failure: a despised and rejected clergyman in a grim backwater mining town in Belgium. Against all the odds he decided to become a serious painter. By 1886, Vincent thought he was good enough to move to Paris to live with his brother Theo, an art dealer specializing in Impressionist painters. With Theo's help, Vincent found a little group of fellow spirits including Toulouse-Lautrec and Emile Bernard, and organized a show of their work in a downscale café. The Painters of the Petit Boulevard (so-called to distinguish them from the painters of the grand boulevard - i.e. the Impressionists) attracted Paul Gauguin - a much more successful painter who had already exhibited with the Impressionists. ![]() Gauguin coveted this painting, offering in exchange his best work to date: By the Shore of the Lake, painted in Martinique. These men were drawn together for two reasons: first, by their urgency to find new ways to express their visions; then by their uncertain status as aging newcomers struggling in the highly competitive impressionist art market. Two lost souls on the highway of life; such people sometimes find a new path to Parnassus. ![]() At the farthest ends of the nation, isolated and misunderstood by almost everyone around them, Paul and Vincent sustain and inspirit each other to produce breakthrough works. At first they exchanged self-portraits, larger than life, of almost frightening power and depth, showing how they saw themselves and how they wished to be seen. Vincent, trying to look like a Buddhist monk [right] with his shaved head and severe expression, only reaffirmed the lack of Nirvana in his life. Gauguin with his "savage" Inca profile and fiery complexion, entitled his portrait Les Misérables [below left], after Hugo's novel; he is the "alleged terrorist", the good man misunderstood by respectable society. ![]() When Gauguin arrived, Vincent insisted they work his way: from nature out of doors. Gauguin resisted, hoping to convince Vincent to paint from the imagination; they tried both, leaving the indoor painting for rainy days. The culminating painting here is an indoor one: Gauguin's Van Gogh Painting Sunflowers, which Vincent described as "me, of course, but Mad." ![]() A few days later, as the New Year began, he was writing to Gauguin and Theo telling them they had made a fuss over something of no great importance. Yet his terrified neighbors insisted that Van Gogh be transferred to a mental hospital in another town. He was to spend long months in the asylum in San Remy, producing some of his greatest works. Gauguin was happy to continue the friendship at a safe distance. In 1890, Vincent committed suicide and Theo died six months later, heartbroken and wrecked. Gauguin, although more outwardly attractive and successful, ended up spending the next fifteen years searching for an imaginary lost paradise in Tahiti - syphilitic, broke and ultimately alone. Yet he continued to write with special affection of the two brothers who were his friends and of his appreciation of Vincent's genius. If you cannot see the exhibit in person you can spend a wonderful time working your way through the exhibit catalogue with its reconstructed maps and photos of all the places they painted. Both the Art Institute of Chicago and the Van Gogh Museum have excellent websites. Most comprehensive of all is the Vincent van Gogh Information Gallery, which has all of Vincent's paintings, sketches and letters online. Related Links:
This article is copyright 2001 by Joseph Phelan. Please do not republish any portion of this article without written permission. Joseph Phelan can be contacted at joe.phelan@verizon.net Past Articles October, 2001 Her Last Bow: Sister Wendy in America, by Joseph Phelan September, 2001 Love, Death and Resurrection: The Paintings of Stanley Spencer, by Joseph Phelan August, 2001 Who is Rodin's Thinker?, by Joseph Phelan July, 2001 Celebrations North and South, by Joseph Phelan June, 2001 Rubens and his Age, by Joseph Phelan May, 2001 Great Reproductions of Great Paintings April, 2001 The Passion of Christ, by Joseph Phelan March, 2001 Edouard Manet: Public Spaces, Private Dreams, by Joseph Phelan February, 2001 Henry Moore and the British Museum: The Great Conversation, by Joseph Phelan December, 2000 Advent Calendar 2000, narrated by Joseph Phelan November, 2000 Article: Notorious Portraits, Part II, by John Malyon October, 2000 Article: Notorious Portraits, Part I, by John Malyon Article: The Other Michelangelo, by Joseph Phelan September, 2000 Article: The Art of Drawing, by Joseph Phelan August, 2000 Article: Poussin and the Heroic Landscape, by Joseph Phelan July, 2000 Article: Great Art Museums Online, by Joseph Phelan June, 2000 Article: Venetian Painting and the Rise of Landscape, by Joseph Phelan May, 2000 Article: Forbidden Visions: Mythology in Art, by Joseph Phelan April, 2000 Article: Themes in Art: The Passion of Christ, by Joseph Phelan Web site review: Christus Rex March, 2000 Web site review: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., by Joseph Phelan Online exhibit review: Inuit Art: The World Around Me, by John Malyon February, 2000/Poll: Who is Producing the Most Interesting Art Today? (Results) January, 2000/Poll: Who is Producing the Most Interesting Art Today? (Part II) December, 1999/Poll: Who is Producing the Most Interesting Art Today? (Part I) November, 1999/The Louvre Museum Web site review: The Louvre October, 1999/Impressionism Web site review: North Carolina Museum of Art September, 1999/Optical Art Web site review: The Butler Institute of American Art August, 1999/Animals in Art Web site review: National Museum of Wildlife Art Online exhibit review: PBS: American Visions July, 1999/Surrealism June, 1999/Sculpture Web site review: Carol Gerten's Fine Art Online exhibit review: Michael Lucero: Sculpture 1976-1995 May, 1999/Women in the Arts Web site review: National Museum of Women in the Arts Online exhibit review: Jenny Holzer: Please Change Beliefs April, 1999/The Golden Age of Illustration Web site review: Fine Arts Museums Of San Francisco Online exhibit review: Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe online March, 1999/Vincent van Gogh Web site review: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam Web site review: The Vincent van Gogh Information Gallery February, 1999/Great Art Web site review: The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia Online exhibit review: John Singleton Copley: Watson and the Shark |