Where Van Gogh Comes to Life a Journey to the Landmark Places Proud of Their Legacies As Artistic Settings for the Dutch Painter
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C M Y K Sxxx,2015-12-27,TR,001,Bs-4C,E1_K1 10 FOOTSTEPS In Prague, a search for Kafka’s inspirations. 6 HEADS UP The liquor gets local in Iceland. 14 36 HOURS Exploring Warsaw, a chic new cultural capital. DISCOVERY ADVENTURE ESCAPE SUNDAY, DECEMBER27, 2015 K ALEX CRETEY-SYSTERMANS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Where van Gogh Comes to Life A journey to the landmark places proud of their legacies as artistic settings for the Dutch painter. House once stood, the sun-drenched Gauguin, and sliced a blade through his own Paris and Arles and St. Rémy in Provence, A vineyard as seen in By NINA SIEGAL Provençal home that was the subject of his ear, before admitting himself to the local and ultimately to the Parisian suburb of Au- van Gogh’s “Vignes Rouges” A few months ago, I stood at the corner of a 1888 oil painting, where he took a period of mental hospital. vers-sur-Oise, where his life was cut short landscape, with tall, elegant busy roundabout called Place Lamartine, “enforced rest” as he put it, in a pale violet- From March to August, I traveled to in his 37th year. cypresses near St.-Rémy- across from the Roman gates leading into walled “Bedroom” he depicted in oil paint- many of the landmarks of van Gogh’s artis- I was on the trail of the artist during Van de-Provence, France. Arles in southern France, on a spot that was ings three times that year. tic life, beginning in the Belgian mining Gogh Europe 2015, the year that commemo- pivotal in the life of Vincent van Gogh. Be- The little house contained legends: It was town of Mons, where the 27-year-old Dutch- rates the 125th anniversary of his death, ob- hind me was the Rhone River, where he where one of the world’s most famous man was fired from his job as a missionary served by cultural events and exhibitions painted sparkling reflections from the quay artists pushed his painting technique to its working among local coal miners for “un- related to van Gogh throughout the Nether- on one particularly memorable starry peak with works such as “Café Terrace at dermining the dignity of the priesthood” by lands, Belgium and France. What struck me night. Before me was a run-down commer- Night,” “Sunflowers” and “The Sower.” And opting to live in the same squalid conditions was that, considering how famous and be- cial strip leading toward vast fields of the it was where his personal life turned a dra- as the miners — and where he instead be- loved van Gogh is, there are a number of sunflowers he painted time and again. matic and tragic corner. Here, van Gogh gan to draw. From there, I traveled to his re- historical landmarks of his life that have not It was where Vincent van Gogh’s Yellow had a tumultuous fight with his friend, Paul nowned painting locations, Montmartre in CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 CULTURED TRAVELER BRISTOL, ENGLAND If These Walls Could Talk bubble-style borders that surround a “tag,” Don’t call it graffiti. Street art, The work of street artists or the skeleton of words or letters inside. like this piece by Alex Mack, remains a source of pride for has helped make a name for the On a trip to London last winter, I decided town of Bristol, England. residents and a tourist draw. to journey two hours east to Bristol, the town made famous by Banksy, Cary Grant, Wallace & Gromit and Massive Attack By SARAH DOYLE (though not necessarily in that order). It I was standing in front of Jesus. And he ap- was recently named the 2015 European peared to be break-dancing. Not only that, Green Capital by the European Commis- he was 28 feet tall. sion. With about 442,500 residents, Bristol “This piece was inspired by the break boasts a surplus of parks, with over 450, and dancers who performed for Pope John Paul narrow alleyways, most of which lend II at the Vatican in 2004,” said Rob Dean, a themselves to walking. This was good news street art expert and guide in Bristol, Eng- to me, for I had signed up for a walking tour land. Jesus saluted me — upside down — his with WHERETHEWALL, a company de- flexed feet reaching toward heaven, a voted to showcasing the town’s famed shroud of gold glitter shimmering around street art and the place where Mr. Dean his body. works. I was astonished. This was graffiti? It Our tour began in the working-class turned out the answer was no. According to neighborhood of Stokes Croft, the scruffy, Mr. Dean, break-dancing Jesus is consid- urban crust of Bristol’s primarily placid in- ered “street art,” a term used to distinguish terior. For decades, the gritty enclave was imaginative urban art from gang-related defined by its many massage parlors and vandalism. The term “graffiti” refers to the CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 ANDY HASLAM FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES C M Y K Sxxx,2015-12-27,TR,008,Cs-4C,E1 8 TR THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2015 Where van Gogh Comes to Life VAN GOGH MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM (VINCENT VAN GOGH FOUNDATION) Vincent van Gogh, “Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat,” 1887, Paris. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 place, but in the location where van Gogh been preserved, or are neglected. A few the artist came to life: in the gritty, drab spots, however — such as van Gogh’s room eastern coal-mining region of Belgium at the asylum in St.-Rémy-de-Provence and called the Borinage, where van Gogh at age his hotel room in Auvers-sur-Oise, where he 25 went to minister to the destitute, soot- died — have been handsomely renovated to blackened workers of the coal pits. Because great effect for visitors interested in the this is where he was rejected from the artist’s life, and for the local communities, priesthood and began his artistic career, the which benefit economically from this form city of Mons has declared this the “birth- of gentle cultural tourism. place of the artist,” with a host of events and Hoping to replicate these strong exam- an exhibition of his early work at the Mu- ples, officials involved in Van Gogh Europe seum of Fine Arts, in Mons, which ended in 2015 said their aim was to promote the for- May. (Van Gogh’s birthplace was in Zun- gotten sites, to focus attention on the fact dert, the Netherlands.) that many sites linked to van Gogh were Van Gogh lived in a few locations in still in need of preservation. Mons; but he found himself ashamed to be “There’s a huge amount of interest world- living so well while the people to whom he wide in van Gogh’s paintings, and there’s a ministered lived in overcrowded huts, and great audience for his work in museums,” so he jettisoned his middle-class pos- Frank van den Eijnden, chairman of the Van sessions and moved into smaller and sim- Gogh Europe Foundation, said in a phone pler homes. He had started out in a large interview. “But generally there is less home up the hill from the local mine, in a red money for restoration and preservation of brick house he rented from a landlord van Gogh heritage, mainly the local her- named Jean-Baptiste Denis. itage sites that you can find in France, Bel- Everyone I spoke to told me that Maison gium and the Netherlands. We needed more Denis was only about a 15-minute drive out- attention for all the organizations involved, side Mons, but it took me an hour of driving and especially from the governments that in circles. It’s not on any map and I got there were linked to these locations. We really by chance: I asked directions from a man want van Gogh heritage to be a world her- who happened to be a private van Gogh tour itage in the coming years.” guide in the area. Finally, there it was: At Mostly, in places where van Gogh lived, the bitter end of a seemingly endless stretch there are a number of plaques featuring van of ramshackle rowhouses at 221, rue Wilson Gogh images or words from his letters, in was a square red brick house with a red tile sometimes inscrutable locations. In St.- roof, only a bit larger than the houses that Rémy-de-Provence, for example, there is a surrounded it. plaque that shows his “Green Wheat Field The home was one of the sites that Mr. With Cypress” posted in front of the white van den Eijnden of the Van Gogh Europe stucco wall of a private home. Foundation had told me was nearly dilapi- I wasn’t a van Gogh fan when I embarked dated, but thanks to fund-raising by a local on this journey. I moved to the Netherlands foundation for Van Gogh Year, renovation of nine years ago to do research for a novel on the house was underway. The house was Rembrandt, and my passion lies more in the still shuttered and there was a large fence Dutch old masters. My trouble with van around the property, but I walked to the Gogh’s work was that, to me, it had the fa- edge of the backyard, where it bordered a miliarity of cereal boxes — or, as Andy grassy field blanketed in wildflowers that Warhol might have it, soup cans — copied followed all the way down the hill to where I and reproduced to the point of unseeability.