Van Gogh and the Avant Garde : The Modern Landscape

 

Van Gogh, Bank of the Seine With Boats, 1887

As often as I’ve read about Van Gogh’s meteoric rise to greatness, the suddenness still amazes me. He first saw Japanese prints and Impressionism during his two year stint in Paris (1886-87) — and that seems to have released powers he’d never shown before.  He spent the next two years in southern France — making the exuberant  pieces for which he is best known. And then he was dead at the age of 37.

This exhibit is limited to the suburban landscapes that he did while in Paris.  No portraits or florals or still life’s  have been brought to Chicago.  Nor are there any cityscapes from Montmartre.  The focus is exclusively on  views of the area around Asnieres because that’s where Van Gogh was joined by younger artists like Seurat, Signac, Bernard and Angrand.  This show is not so much about Van Gogh as it is about that group of young, innovative cityscape painters of the late 1880’s. 

And yet - we don’t get to see the best examples of their work. (Unless you walk to the other end of the museum to see Le Grande Jette (1884-1886). Signac is the only painter not named Van Gogh whose paintings in this exhibit stand out.  He was ten years younger, but he was a fast learner.  His pieces have that fresh excitement of being alive - and not knowing what’s going to happen next.

Paul Signac, Road to Gennevilliers, 1883

Paul Signac, Quai de Saint-Queen, 1885

How did Van Gogh incorporate short brushstrokes and strong color so quickly into such exciting and luminous views of the world? There’s no answering such a question - only wondering at it.  This exhibition converges a geographic area with a moment in the history of French landscape paining - much as exhibitions of the Barbizon school from an earlier generation might do. But what’s really special about Van Gogh’s paintings transcends all that.  Personal destiny is something of a mystery.

Van Gogh, Restaurant de Sirene, Asnieres, 1887

Van Gogh, Restaurant Rispal at Asnieres, 1887

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This is one of the few times I disagree with Dmitry Samarov.  He takes the museum to task for putting up yet another Van Gogh blockbuster to pull in the crowds and rake in profits.  But I appreciate the emphasis on this brief but important moment in Van Gogh’s development - as well as this snapshot of young cityscape painters of the Paris suburbs c. 1885.  Most of the pieces in the show do not grab me - but that is the case with just about every show I visit.  I also prefer Van Gogh's bourgeois restaurants to his gritty industrial park - and feel that  Dmitry's own cityscapes share the energy and attitude of  the  youthful Signac.

Museums should not be scolded for appealing to a wide audience with superstars while also showing the less famous.  But wouldn’t it have been refreshing if the show included, for the sake of comparison, a few pieces by local contemporary Plein air urban landscapists ( like Dimitry, for example ).

Here is his review in the Chicago Reader