I made the most of a rare and precious child-free Tuesday by heading to the NGV to see their recently-opened winter blockbuster show, entitled ‘Van Gogh and the Seasons’. There has been much fanfare about the exhibition, as paintings by Van Gogh rarely make it to these shores. And already, before the gallery doors opened at 10am, there was an excited queue snaking down St Kilda Road.
There turned out to be a lot of padding. The first room was devoted to a massive video projection of luscious southern French landscapes, the second featured a selection, from Van Gogh’s own collection, of contemporary/historical lithographs and etchings (interesting, in terms of how they informed his brushstrokes, compositions and content – many of them celebrated the rural labourer). The third room was full of Japanese ukiyo-e (from the NGV’s own archives) – lesser-known Hokusais and Hiroshiges – beautiful to look at but not all of them essential in getting the message across that Van Gogh was inspired by them!
Finally, in the fourth room, there were the Van Gogh paintings. Each one had its own special wall, protective plinth/step and bench – like a little altar. Each of the four sections (of the one large room) was devoted to a season, with earlier and later paintings (and a number of ink sketches/etchings) presented alongside each other. Autumn was first. I was taken by an early dark-hued work, a scene of a lone peasant woman walking home through the flat, poplar-edged Dutch fields at dusk. Despite its dingy palate it had a vividly atmospheric crepuscular glow. I also loved a scene of blasted pine trees against a fiery orange sky – a late work, made when he was crippled by mental illness.
Because of the way the paintings were presented, it was possible to view them quite closely sideways on, which meant that you could study the brushstrokes (see grape harvest detail). I still find it quite surprising that cameras are allowed in every exhibition here. It makes the dynamic of the gallery quite different – no more hushed reverence and slow-moving huddles of people, but instead a crowd of bustling paparazzi clicking away constantly on their phones. It wasn’t great constantly having a phone shoved in front of my face when I was looking at a painting, but conversely, people generally moved on swiftly, so I could linger as long as I liked without annoying anyone!
The winter section was mainly devoted to melancholy little sketches of snow-bound orchards and graveyards (many from an unhappy period Van Gogh spent with his parents in a small Dutch village). Spring introduced us to his most colourful, vibrant works. I spent some time absorbing the greens/ochres/purples/turquoises of a cherry orchard, and admired a lovely sketch of a patch of grass full of spring flowers – almost all of it captured in short vertical straight lines. The wonderful geometric details of a pine-tree stump made me think of Australian paper-barks.
A lively summer sketch of the white candle flowers of a horse chestnut tree made me feel home-sick (and sad for all the dying horse chestnuts in Europe), and I was very happy to see the exhibition’s key-note painting – the cedars in a corn field – shipped over from London’s National Gallery (a painting I always try and visit whenever I’m there!). I left the exhibition wanting more, but also inspired by seeing some world-class art!
With the exception of a happy evening spent enjoying the soporific harmonics/harmonies of Jeremy’s selonding (an ensemble I haven’t played in for a year or so), the rest of the week was unremarkable. It was very cold and wet and Maisie was ill again (school really is taking its toll – she’s applying herself so much to the work that she is constantly exhausted) so we stayed in a lot and tried not to go stir-crazy!
Maisie did muster up the energy for her first bike ride with Daddy – from our house to the end of St Kilda pier and back (a distance of about 5.5 kilometres).
sophieinmelbourne 