Van Gogh Museum Journal 2003 bron Van Gogh Museum Journal 2003. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam 2003 Zie voor verantwoording: http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_van012200301_01/colofon.php © 2012 dbnl / Rijksmuseum Vincent Van Gogh 7 Director's foreword The Van Gogh Museum mounts around six exhibitions every year, covering a wide range of subjects from the history of 19th and early 20th-century art. Many of these are international collaborations with partner museums, often involving loans from across the world. Yet, even for an institution accustomed to mounting large, temporary exhibitions, the show devoted to Van Gogh and Gauguin (The Art Institute of Chicago, 22 September 2001-13 January 2002, Van Gogh Museum, 9 February-2 June 2002) was of an order that fell far beyond the boundaries of our normal experience. In part this was because of the sheer scale of the enterprise and the various logistical challenges presented by this particular undertaking. It was also because the response from the public was almost overwhelming. Over a period of five months, some 739,000 visitors came to see Van Gogh and Gauguin in Amsterdam, making it the busiest art exhibition anywhere in the world in that year. But in the end it was the visual and emotional impact of this encounter between two great yet opposing talents that created an extraordinary show. From the beginnings of their first awareness of each other's art in the 1880s, through the brief but frenetic period when they were together in Arles in 1888, and then on to the end of their careers, the interaction between the two painters was revealed and analysed. Through series and combinations of some of their finest works, it was possible to follow each turn in this compelling relationship, a human and artistic story that was to have far-reaching consequences not just for the men involved, but also for the entire course of modern art. The works of art have now been returned to their various owners but we have a lasting reminder of this project in the superb catalogue by Douglas W. Druick and Peter Kort Zegers. In this volume of the Van Gogh Museum Journal we provide yet another record of the research related to the exhibition. In March 2002 the Van Gogh Museum hosted an international symposium devoted to Van Gogh and Gauguin (described below by Chris Stolwijk). Seven of the papers given at the time are published here. Whilst we cannot reproduce the crackle of debate and lively discussion generated by the event, the articles provide a view of some of the many and varied issues that are raised by the individual careers of Van Gogh and Gauguin, as well as by their artistic friendship and rivalry. As in previous years, this Journal also includes articles under the rubric ‘Van Gogh studies.’ Of particular interest is the discovery of a previously unknown letter written by Vincent to the dealer H.G Tersteeg in August 1877, a document that is a rare and precious survivor from what must have been an extensive correspondence. Also in line with previous editions, we present a survey of the acquisitions made by the Van Gogh Museum in the past year. We are especially delighted to document the addition of one of Gustave Caillebotte's most intriguing paintings to the museum's collection. In a letter to the museum, the late Kirk Varnedoe described Caillebotte's View from a balcony quite simply as ‘an incredibly beautiful and important work,’ and we are happy to agree with this assessment. I would like to thank all the authors for their contributions. I would like to thank especially the Managing editor, Rachel Esner, our Head of Research, Chris Stolwijk, Fieke Pabst, the museum's documentalist, and our Head of publications Suzanne Bogman for all their efforts in bringing together this volume of the Van Gogh Museum Journal. Van Gogh Museum Journal 2003 John Leighton Director Van Gogh Museum Journal 2003 8 [Van Gogh-Gauguin Symposium] Introduction Chris Stolwijk For many people, the life and work of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin continues to hold an enormous fascination. This became more than evident when the exhibition Van Gogh-Gauguin: the Studio of the South attracted huge crowds. Following years of intensive preparation and close cooperation with The Art Institute of Chicago, the show ran in Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum from 9 February to 2 June 2002. The exhibition examined around 120 works by these artists, and reconstructed the complex rivalry that existed between two of the most influential painters of the last decades of the 19th century. In the accompanying catalogue, Douglas W. Druick and Peter Kort Zeegers describe in minute detail the early history of this relationship, the artists' mutual admiration, the brief but significant months when they worked together in the ‘Studio of the South,’ and the subsequent period when they each went their own way. The art-historical research carried out in preparation for the exhibition and the catalogue forms part of a long tradition. With an eye to establishing the current state of research on these two artists, and also to opening up new fields of study, the Van Gogh Museum organised an international symposium entitled Van Gogh-Gauguin, which was held from 7-9 March 2002. Douglas W. Druick gave the introductory keynote address. He recalled in detail the many approaches taken in the past by scholars working on Van Gogh and Gauguin. Despite their great diversity, he considers that ‘different views of the Van Gogh-Gauguin relationship can in a sense be superimposed, seen through each other to produce a more complex, three-dimensional picture of the ways in which individual and idiosyncratic particulars inflect broader artistic and cultural shaping forces, and vice-versa.’ Another feature of the symposium was the opportunity it offered the public to exchange ideas with the exhibition curators; during the session Displaying Van Gogh and Gauguin people could express their views on the design and presentation of the show at the two venues, Chicago and Amsterdam. However, the majority of time was devoted to the sessions dealing with four key areas, which the organisers considered to be primary in current research. Conservation occupied a prominent position. The contributions discussing the alteration of colour relationships in Van Gogh's paintings (Ann Hoeningswald), the technical research into a number of Gauguin's works in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Charlotte Hale), the wealth of new technical information recent research has revealed concerning Van Gogh's Antwerp and Paris paintings (Ella Hendriks), and new light on Van Gogh's use of tracings (Kristin Lister) showed once again most convincingly that technical research can, and will continue to, provide us with invaluable information and insights. Clearly, the field benefits considerably from a close cooperation between restorers, conservators and academics. Over the past years questions of authenticity have strongly coloured the art-historical debate around Van Gogh, and to a lesser extent, Gauguin. In their lectures during the session on Authenticity, Vojtĕch Jirat-Wasiutyński and Louis van Van Gogh Museum Journal 2003 Tilborgh posed several such often-pressing questions in an historical perspective, and intimated the difficulties arising for both the researcher and the public when ascribing works to either Gauguin or Van Gogh - or rejecting them. Some time was also spent on a public debate about the authenticity of the Sunflowers (F 457 JH 1666). The lectures that formed part of the series Current views on Van Gogh and Gauguin were also multifaceted, both in terms of content and approach. Using a wealth of press reviews and art literature, Isabelle Cahn outlined the reception of Gauguin's work in France in the years 1905-49. At the time of his death, the artist was as good as forgotten, only to be completely rehabilitated a few decades later. Van Gogh Museum Journal 2003 9 With an approach combining art history and the history of ideas, Debora Silverman investigated the two artists' ‘religious modernism.’ In her view, while in Arles Van Gogh absorbed and as it were processed the brilliant colours and Roman Catholic culture of Provence, making use of his own craft labour and Protestant humanism to create a kind of ‘sacred realism.’ For Gauguin, on the other hand, brought up a Catholic, art was an abstraction, which was to set people free from everyday reality and offer a glimpse of the divine. Belinda Thomson, using a large quantity of source material, reconstructed the period that Gauguin and Robert Louis Stevenson spent in the South Pacific. Although it remains unclear whether Gauguin was familiar with Stevenson's work, the latter's realistic, modern vision of Pacific life, written from a Eurocentric perspective and rich in humour and irony, offers a vital and vibrant context within which to approach Gauguin's Tahitian work, which is packed with a cultivated mystique and obscured meanings. Fred Leeman based his lecture on a combination of art-historical comparisons, (new) archival information and first-person documents (letters, diaries, etc.) and presented a new interpretation of the influence of Emile Bernard's work on that of Van Gogh and Gauguin in 1888. According to Leeman, this influence was considerably more profound and far-reaching than has so far been assumed in the art-historical literature. Both Van Gogh and Gauguin were prolific writers, although the former never intended that his letters be published. In fact, Van Gogh used his letters to explore and test out his ideas against those of others, including major painters and writers. In his lecture for the session The artist as a writer Wouter van der Veen suggested that Van Gogh had a literary mind, which to a large extent dominated his relationship with Gauguin.