Byob Canvas Painting for One or Two at Art in the Vine
The Ruddy Vineyard is among Van Gogh's most dramatically coloured Provençal landscapes, just it is besides famed for beingness the only painting that the artist is sure to have sold. It went for 400 francs (then £16) at a Brussels exhibition in March 1890, four months earlier his suicide.
The picture is now in Russia, at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Recently the museum decided to conserve the pic, to ensure its long-term preservation. This led to the kickoff investigation of The Red Vineyard using modern scientific techniques, unearthing fascinating discoveries.
The Red Vineyard in the Pushkin's conservation studio, Moscow, 2021 Credit: Pushkin Museum, Moscow
Van Gogh came across the vineyard on a late afternoon walk with Paul Gauguin on 28 Oct 1888, five days subsequently his friend's inflow in Arles. Picking the grapes ordinarily takes identify in September in Provence, but the harvest seems to have been late that yr. On around 11 October Vincent had written to his brother Theo: "There are bunches weighing a kilo, even—the grape is magnificent this year, from the fine fall days."
Vincent described the vineyard scene he had witnessed with Gauguin: "A red vineyard, completely red like red wine. In the distance it became yellowish, then a dark-green sky with a lord's day, fields violet and sparkling yellow hither and there after the pelting in which the setting sun was reflected."
Although Van Gogh liked to paint landscapes outdoors, he completed The Red Vineyard back in his studio—using his imagination. Gauguin was then encouraging him to brand his pictures more creative, less literal. No doubt the two artists discussed this vineyard scene on their return later the walk—over a glass or two of the local Provençal red wine.
Van Gogh's fiery colouration is certainly extreme. The vines are much redder than i would expect, with Vincent describing information technology as the colour of the plant Virginia Creeper. On the right of the limerick is what might appear as a river, merely information technology is a road, glistening wet after recent rain. The huge sun, setting in a late autumnal afternoon, produces an eerily yellow sky.
In the upper left, the row of copse shelters a road running north-east from Arles. On the horizon, to the far right, one tin can just make out the afar ruins of the abbey of Montmajour, painted in light blue.
The Pushkin Museum's examination of The Ruddy Vineyard, sponsored by LG Signature, has revealed important details most how the moving-picture show was developed. Parts of the sun and sky are created from paint squeezed straight from the tube onto the canvas, with the creative person sometimes using his finger to smooth information technology out.
A technical analysis shows that the colouration of the sky has been partly lost. Van Gogh used chrome xanthous paint, which darkens with exposure to low-cal. His original yellows would accept been fifty-fifty brighter and nevertheless more dramatic.
Van Gogh also made changes to the composition. The man standing in the road in the upper right was originally a woman dressed in a skirt, white blouse and hat.
The prominent woman in nighttime blue bending over a basket, in the central foreground, was added later. The woman on the far right, by the edge of the road, wears the traditional costume of the Arlésiennes, the famed women of Arles. The Pushkin specialists advise that she represents Van Gogh's friend Marie Ginoux, who with her married man ran the Café de la Gare, but a few doors from the Yellow House, the artist's domicile and studio.
The Scarlet Vineyard has an unusual history. In Apr 1889 Vincent sent the painting to Theo in Paris. Describing information technology as "very beautiful", Theo hung information technology in the Parisian apartment he had just moved into with his helpmate Jo Bonger.
A few months afterwards Vincent was offered the opportunity to showroom a few paintings at an exhibition organised by the grouping Les Vingt in Brussels in January 1890. Among those he chose was The Crimson Vineyard, which he asked Theo to dispatch. At the bear witness it was bought by Anna Boch, who kept it until 1907.
The two early collectors: Anna Boch (Théo Van Rysselberghe'due south Portrait of Anna Boch, 1892) and Ivan Morosov (Valentin Serov'due south Portrait of Ivan Abramovich Morosov, with a painting past Henri Matisse in the background, 1910). Credit: © Michele and Donald D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts; The James Philip Grayness Collection (Jon Polak Photography) and Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Two years later The Cherry-red Vineyard was acquired past the avant-garde Moscow collector and material factory owner Ivan Morosov. The request price had risen to 30,000 francs, an indication of Van Gogh's rapid rise to fame.
Morosov's collection was nationalised in 1918, a twelvemonth after the Russian Revolution. In 1919 he emigrated to Finland, dying in 1921. Initially Morosov's paintings were kept in his Moscow mansion, which was turned into a public museum.
In 1948, The Red Vineyard was amongst the works transferred to the Pushkin Museum. However during Stalin'due south later years information technology was not on display, since he regarded Modern French fine art as inappropriate for a Communist society. Following de-Stalinization, subsequently the leader's expiry in 1953, the Van Gogh once more went on show. The Red Vineyard has remained in Moscow and has not been sent out on loan for over 60 years.
The question of the painting's condition recently came up with the system of a major exhibition of the Morosov collection in Paris. Somewhen information technology was decided that the Van Gogh was too fragile to travel. The Pushkin managing director Marina Loshak admitted that it was "very pitiful" that this "ill" painting could non travel to exterior exhibitions. Hence the conclusion to conserve information technology.
The exhibition The Morozov Collection: Icons of Modern Art is now on at the Fondation Louis Vuitton until 3 April (with nearly 200 works of Modernistic art, but without The Red Vineyard). The bear witness has proved a spectacular success, having already attracted over 800,000 visitors. The concluding figure could achieve 1.2 million by the closure, an amazing number, particularly during the pandemic.
One question that the Pushkin will now have to consider is the presentation of The Red Vineyard, which has been hung in an ornate gilt frame. This frame probably dates from the time of Morosov'southward acquisition, in 1909. It has become part of the history of the painting, so information technology is unlikely to exist inverse.
Only a fancy gilt frame was not at all what Vincent had intended. In a letter to Theo he gave his own views on framing: "simple strips of wood nailed on the stretching frame and painted." He drew an accompanying rough thumbnail sketch of the framed painting.
Vincent van Gogh's quick sketch of the framed The Red Vineyard in a letter of the alphabet to Theo, 10 November 1888 Credit: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
The Ruby Vineyard is still in the Pushkin'due south conservation studio, simply it is due to go on brandish this summer in the museum'due south presentation of the Paris exhibition, Blood brother Ivan: the Collection of Ivan and Mikhail Morozov (27 June-thirty Oct).
Van Gogh's companion Gauguin too painted his own depiction of the vineyard which they had seen together during their walk about Montmajour. Only his version of the scene could hardly have been more unlike. Indeed, at outset glance, it looks niggling similar an autumnal harvest.
Paul Gauguin'southward Human Misery (The Vino Harvest) (November 1888). Credit: Ordrupgaard Collection, Copenhagen
Gauguin's painting, which he initially entitled Human being Misery (Nov 1888), focuses on a melancholic adult female whose figure was inspired by a contorted Peruvian mummy that the artist had seen in a Paris museum. Behind her are two rows of dense vines, with a couple of stooping pickers, set against a strong yellow-ochre background.
Van Gogh commented on Gauguin'southward technique, proverb that the composition with the grieving woman had come from his friend'south "caput", from his imagination. "If he doesn't spoil it or leave information technology unfinished information technology will exist very beautiful and strange," Vincent commented.
Gauguin himself believed information technology was his "best picture" of the year—although its sombre championship tin can hardly have boosted the chances of a sale. But similar Van Gogh'south painting it, too, soon found a buyer—Emile Schuffenecker, a progressive creative person friend. Information technology was in the artistic circumvolve of the avant-garde that the work of both Van Gogh and Gauguin was first appreciated—and found buyers.
Other Van Gogh news:
Yesterday, the Courtauld opened its exhibition Van Gogh Self-Portraits (until 8 May). The critics have greeted information technology with admiration, attracting 5-star reviews from UK publications including the Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph and Evening Standard.
Van Gogh: Self-Portraits at the Courtauld Gallery, February 2022. Photo: © Fergus Carmichael, courtesy of the Courtauld Gallery
Martin Bailey is the author of Van Gogh's Finale: Auvers and the Artist's Rise to Fame (Francis Lincoln, 2021, available in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland and Us ). He is a leading Van Gogh specialist and investigative reporter for The Art Newspaper. Bailey has curated Van Gogh exhibitions at the Barbican Art Gallery and Compton Verney/National Gallery of Scotland. He was a co-curator of Tate Britain's The EY Exhibition: Van Gogh and Britain (27 March-11 August 2019).
Martin Bailey's recent Van Gogh books
Bailey has written a number of other bestselling books, including The Sunflowers Are Mine: the Story of Van Gogh's Masterpiece (Frances Lincoln 2013, available in the UK and US ), Studio of the S: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln 2016, bachelor in the U.k. and U.s. ) and Starry Nighttime: Van Gogh at the Asylum (White Lion Publishing 2018, bachelor in the UK and The states ). Bailey'southward Living with Vincent van Gogh: the Homes and Landscapes that Shaped the Artist (White King of beasts Publishing 2019, available in the United kingdom and US ) provides an overview of the artist'south life. The Illustrated Provence Letters of Van Gogh has been reissued (Batsford 2021, available in the United kingdom and US ).
• To contact Martin Bailey, delight email: vangogh@theartnewspaper.com. Please kindly refer queries nigh hallmark of possible Van Goghs to the Van Gogh Museum .
Read more from Martin's Adventures with Van Gogh bloghere.
Source: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/02/04/how-did-the-only-painting-sold-by-van-gogh-in-his-lifetime-end-up-in-russia
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