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Library | Material Type | Shelf Number | Child Count | Shelf Location | Status | Item Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Museum | Book | ND653 .G7 A4 1986 | 1 | Stacks | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Reviews (3)
Booklist Review
A series of recent exhibitions have examined various periods in van Gogh's career, and now the artist's last works completed at Saint-Rmy and Auvers receive their due attention in a show that recently closed at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. This exhibition covers the 15 months between van Gogh's departure from Arles to the asylum at Saint-Rmy and the last weeks of his life at Auvers. The works produced during this period are astounding for the artist's command and for the dazzling impressions that are created as van Gogh recorded his new surroundings and captured the unfamiliar world in which he lived and died. The text of this exhibition catalog, which derives largely from the artist's correspondence with family and friends, establishes a chronology of his final days. Pickvance also examines the groups and series of paintings that this strange environment spurred van Gogh to create and relates these works to the broader context of the artist's oeuvre. A series of excellent color and black-and-white illustrations reveals the splendor of these late van Goghs. Appendixes, bibliography; no index. JB. 759.9492 Gogh, Vincent van Exhibitions / Gogh, Vincent van Homes and haunts France Saint-Remy-de-Provence Exhibitions / Gogh, Vincent van Homes and haunts France Auvers-sur-Oise Exhibitions / Painters Netherlands Exhibitions / Saint-Remy-de-Provence (France) in art Exhibitions / Auvers-sur-Oise (France) in art Exhibitions [OCLC] 86-21871
Choice Review
Van Gogh's last years have long been of interest to students of 19th-century painting. His well-publicized illness and final suicide have transformed these last years into a paradigmatic sequence of artistic struggle. The recent exhibition offered an opportunity to experience the late works as a whole. The catalog reproduces these paintings and drawings in luminous color-even the texture of the paint surface is revealed. This is the catalog's strength. Its weakness is a refusal to address, even minimally, the dramatic questions with which the works challenge us. Rather than take the opportunity to explore the issues of extrinsic art history and approach Van Gogh's last years from several directions, Pickvance has rejected the whole question with the simple statement that Van Gogh's emotional and physical problems ``did not directly affect his work.'' He relies instead on extensive quotes from Van Gogh's letters and other documents to trace the day-to-day life of the artist and to pinpoint locations and images. This is interesting material and certainly worthwhile, but it is no substitute for understanding. Each work is accompanied by a simple stylistic analysis and commentary. None of the extensive scholarship on Van Gogh's iconography or symbolism is really used. The reader is left with dramatic pictures and a neutral text. Even so, this is a catalog that belongs in all libraries. Although this is not scholarship at the leading edge, it is information that is useful.-T.F. Mitchell, University of Kansas
Library Journal Review
Van Gogh's prodigious output of paintings was restricted (unbelievably) to ten years of his short life. This handsome volume concerns the last 15 monthsfrom May 1889 to July 1890the period when he painted masterpieces such as ``The Starry Night'' and ``Wheat Field Under Clouded Sky,'' and is the catalog of the recent exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum. It is the logical sequel to the stunning 1984 Met show catalog Van Gogh in Arles, also authored by Pickvance. There is a detailed chronology, copiously illustrated, describing Van Gogh's daily life and voluminous correspondence. There are 304 illustrations, including 90 colorplates (in the usual fine Abrams style). Successfully rounding out this work, the author has included his translation of the well-known article by Aurier, the only critical essay on Van Gogh's oeuvre to be published during the artist's lifetime. Art libraries will want to acquire this. Gloria K. Rensch, formerly with Vigo Cty. P.L., Terre Haute, Ind. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.