The exhibition is built thanks to the decisive contribution of that Vangoghian casket which is the Kröller-Müller Museum in Holland, together with the
together with loans from a dozen other museums, it accurately reconstructs the entire biographical story, initially placing the emphasis on the decisive Dutch years, which from the autumn of 1880 in the Borinage mines, actually in Belgium, until the autumn of 1885 at the end of Nuenen's fundamental period, are a sort of inflamed and continuously protracted stigmata. A real via crucis in the pain and desperation of living.
Van Gogh. Between the wheat and the sky, curated by Marco Goldin, presents an exceptionally large number of works by the Dutch painter, 40 paintings and 85 drawings, 07 October 2017 – 08 April 2018.
And in this laboratory we will enter with respect and circumspection, with the help of the fundamental letters that Vincent sent, like a real diary of the torn heart, especially to his brother Théo, but not only. The letters will therefore constitute, day after day, like sheets of a diary, the leitmotif of the exhibition, so that through words one can penetrate to the depths of the poignant mystery of the beauty of a work that never ceases to fascinate us. Because it is so strongly connected to the presentation of a life always on the edge. Letters that will very often be found printed on the walls, next to the works that inspired them. And it is no coincidence that Marco Goldin will curate, together with the volume/catalogue that will accompany the exhibition, a book with a choice of one hundred letters, including all those dedicated to the paintings on display in Vicenza.
The exhibition studies initially, and in depth, the five years of the Dutch stay of the artist, in Brabant, from Etten in the spring of 1881 until the autumn of 1885 in Nuenen. But also the wonderful months spent in the autumn of 1883 in the Drenthe region, the one most loved by Dutch landscapers and in which Van Gogh created some sheets of exquisite elegance. With the anticipation determined, at the beginning of everything, by the long period spent in Belgium, from December 1878 to October 1880, in the Borinage mining district, southwest of Mons, before a few months in Brussels.
And after the three months, between 1885 and 1886, in Antwerp to attend the local Academy of Fine Arts, the decisive landing in France will come, from the beginning of March 1886, initially in Paris, until the morning of February 19, 1888 when, as a farewell, he visits Seurat's studio together with his brother Théo. To get to know the paintings of the impressionists and those of the post-impressionists directly, Seurat in the lead. Whose work he had encountered for the first time from life only a few weeks after his arrival in Paris, when it roams the halls, in May, of the eighth and final edition of the Impressionist exhibitions
Then, finally, the much desired immersion in the South, first in Arles, from February 20, 1888 until the beginning of May 1889, and then for a year in Saint-Rémy, until mid-May 1890. Before the few days spent in Paris at his brother Théo's house, to reach the conclusion of his life with the seventy, feverish days of Auvers-sur-Oise. When everything comes to fruition in the horizontal expanses of the fields, stretched out under a sunny sky or swollen with a rain that seems to never end. The golden yellow of the harvest and the blue of the sky. Closeness and distance from the world. Often in a single, tortured image.
An innovative set-up will then combine the beauty of so many works with the reconstruction of Van Gogh's life. This, rendered in a real one-hour film, created for the occasion, which will be screened in a continuous cycle in a room at the end of the itinerary of the exhibition itself, in the Basilica Palladiana. An exciting way to combine, in a single exhibition, the masterpieces of painting and drawing with the projection of life. Finally, in a large model of about 20 square meters, it will be possible to admire the reconstruction of the mental hospital of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy, where Van Gogh chose to be hospitalized from May 1889 to May 1890.
Image: Vincent van Gogh, Landscape in the rain at Auvers, 1890 oil on canvas, cm 50 x 100 Cardiff, Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales / The Davies Sisters Collection
