170 years of Van Gogh: an exhibition of paintings has opened, revealing the artist’s last obsessions

This year marks the 170th anniversary of the birth of Vincent van Gogh, and it was his last months that became the subject of a major exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. It is organized in collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, where the exhibition Van Gogh at Auvers-sur-Oise debuted earlier this year. The last months.” As a result, viewers will be able to see 48 paintings and 25 drawings, many of which are being exhibited in Paris for the first time. They were created by the post-impressionist in the period from May 20, 1890, when he moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, until his death on July 29.

Van Gogh moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, a pastoral commune about 20 miles northwest of Paris, to be closer to his brother and art dealer Theo and his infant nephew Vincent Willem, and to receive treatment from Dr. Paul Gachet .

The first gallery of the Orsay exhibition is dedicated to Gachet, who made a career out of treating melancholy, the subject of his dissertation, and counted among his patients artists such as Paul Cézanne, Armand Guillaumin and Camille Pissarro. Gachet considered Van Gogh both patient and friend, inviting the artist to lunch on Sundays. Among the works on display are Van Gogh’s portraits of Gachet, including the famous 1890 painting donated to the Musée d’Orsay in 1949, as well as the only engraving Van Gogh ever made; Gachet provided the artist with the materials to create it.

Divided into six thematic sections, such as “Auvers is Seriously Beautiful…” and “Modern Portraiture,” the exhibition includes rustic scenes, floral still lifes, experimental portraits with weave patterns, tone-on-tone paintings, a series of double-sided sketches, Van Gogh’s letters, including including one that he never sent, and 11 of the 12 double landscapes (1 meter by 50 centimeters) that were among Van Gogh’s last obsessions before his death.

Among the most famous works on display is Wheatfield with Crows (1890), which has not left Amsterdam for almost a century. The dynamic composition, with confident, visible brushstrokes, depicts ominous crows fluttering across a stormy sky, often interpreted as the artist’s realization that his end is near. The painting has long been considered Van Gogh’s last work. But then it was believed that Tree Roots (1890) was completed a few hours before the Dutch master shot himself in the chest. At first glance, the abstract painting, which has a hasty, almost unfinished appearance, shows a colorful interweaving of tree roots and trunks – a vision of omnipotent nature.