Vincent van Gogh. Cultured painter
Van Gogh was not only a creative genius, but also an avid reader, a keen observer of cultural trends, an assiduous museum visitor and art collector. The curatorship of the exhibition was entrusted to Professor Francesco Poli, one of the leading experts on Van Gogh’s art, who worked in synergy with curators Mariella Guzzoni and Aurora Canepari.
The exhibition offered an innovative path combining chronology and cultural themes, with a special focus on the three main interests that inspired his art: his passion for literature, his fascination with Japan, and the influence of Jean-François Millet. In addition, the path runs through the four main phases of the artist’s life: the Dutch period, his stay in Paris, his experience in Arles, and his internment in Saint-Rémy.
The works on display, mostly from the Kröller-Müller Museum in Amsterdam, have been placed in dialogue with more than 30 original editions of books and magazines that accompanied Van Gogh’s life. Among the authors who influenced his vision are Dickens, Michelet, Shakespeare and Zola, authors whose social and human themes are reflected in his paintings.
The exhibition explored Van Gogh’s fascination with Japanese culture, a phenomenon known as “Japanism,” which overwhelmed European artists in the late 19th century. The dedicated section exhibited a selection of original prints and woodcuts by Japanese masters such as Hokusai and Hiroshige, who had a strong influence on the artist’s style and poetics.
Jean-François Millet, with his depiction of peasant life, was an artistic and human model for Van Gogh. The peasant, a symbol of spirituality and connection with nature, features prominently in numerous comparisons between Van Gogh’s works and Millet’s drawings, as in The Diggers and The Sower.
Complementing the exhibition tour, an immersive room curated by multimedia design studio Karmachina offered visitors an audiovisual experience that evoked Van Gogh’s literary and artistic universe. An open book composition took the audience on a visual journey through sketches, illustrations, paintings and quotations from the artist’s letters.
An accompanying editorial project
Alongside the traditional exhibition catalog, 24 ORE Cultura Editore has published a monograph edited by Simona Bartolena, part of the series
A Life for Art, which chronicles Van Gogh’s life and work, maintaining a delicate balance between his troubled existence and his artistic parable.
A major international project
This exhibition is the result of a collaboration with the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, which lent about 40 works, and with the support of the City of Milan-Cultura. It has obtained the patronage of the Embassy and Consulate General of the Netherlands in Italy, with the institutional partnership of Fondazione Deloitte. The curatorship was entrusted to Francesco Poli, with the collaboration of Mariella Guzzoni and Aurora Canepari, who respectively curated the sections Van Gogh. Living with books e Van Gogh: the Japanese dream. From Paris to Provence.