How Vincent Van Gogh Fell in Love with Japan - by Lesley Downer

‘a little yellow house with green door and shutters, whitewashed inside - on the white walls - very brightly coloured Japanese drawings - red tiles on the floor.’ 

A couple of weekends ago I was in Amsterdam to see an irresistible exhibition - Van Gogh and Japan at the Van Gogh Museum. I wondered what Vincent, poor tormented soul, would have made of that vast glitzy museum devoted to his works and memory, with its mobs of visitors and museum shops selling everything from Van Gogh luggage to Van Gogh dog coats. He was not exactly poor. His brother Theo who worked for a Paris art dealer took care of him. But he never found much success either during his life. He only sold one painting to anyone other than Theo.

Sudden Shower over Shin Ohashi, Atake, Hiroshige (L)

Bridge in the Rain (after Hiroshige), Van Gogh (R)

In February 1886, when Van Gogh was thirty three, he arrived back in Paris after ten years roaming from Ramsgate to the Low Countries. He lived there with Theo for two years and made friends with artists such as Émile Bernard, Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul Signac. 

He also became acquainted with the celebrated art dealer Siegfried Bing. Pretty much ever since Japan opened to the west in 1858 the west had been flooded with Japanese arts and crafts. All Paris along with half the western world was afire with Japonisme, unbridled enthusiasm for all things Japanese, and Siegfried Bing had largely cornered the market.

Over the following winter Van Gogh bought up more than 600 Japanese woodblock prints. He planned to sell them. But as he leafed through them he was transfixed by the dramatic designs, compositions, bright colours, strong lines and extraordinary viewpoints, all startling and fresh to western eyes.

It’s well known that Van Gogh was much influenced by Japanese art but this is the first exhibition to bring together so many of Van Gogh’s paintings alongside the prints that inspired them. It also broadens out the picture to reveal how much Van Gogh’s view of life was brightened by what he called these ‘cheerful prints’ - and how they played a part in shaping other aspects of his life.

Courtesan (after Eisen) by Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh’s first forays into Japanese art were to paint copies of three woodblock prints. One was Keisai Eisen’s Courtesan which featured on the cover of a special Japan edition of the magazine Paris Illustré. The others were landscape prints by Hiroshige which he had bought. It’s extraordinary to contrast Van Gogh’s dense impassioned brush strokes with the clean cool lines of the Japanese originals. The images are the same though he’s surrounded his courtesan with Japanese motifs - bamboo, cranes, frogs and waterlilies. But the techniques and mood and final effect are radically different.

He also painted a portrait of his art dealer, Julien Tanguy, against a backdrop of woodblock prints, including Van Gogh’s own courtesan painting.

Portrait of Pere Tanguy by Vincent Van Gogh

After two years in Paris he couldn’t stand the hustle and bustle any longer and in 1888 moved south. It was as if he was besotted with Japan, looking for it everywhere. On the way south he kept gazing out of the train window to see ‘if it was like Japan yet.’ He was sure he would find his dream of Japan there. He took with him a few woodblock prints, not famous or expensive ones but cheerful colourful depictions of landscapes and women.

In Arles, the natural beauty and bright light and cheerful colours recreated Japan for him. The southern light, he wrote, turned everything into ‘Japan’. There was a field of irises there which he painted and described as a Japanese dream. He writes of the landscape of La Crau with its peach trees, ‘Everything there is small, the gardens, the fields, the trees, even those mountains, as in certain Japanese landscapes, that’s why this subject attracted me.’ ‘I’m always saying to myself that I’m in Japan here,’ he said in another letter. ‘That as a result I only have to open my eyes and paint right in front of me what makes an impression on me.’ 

Rock of Montmajour by Vincent van Gogh

Hakone by Ando Hiroshige

In the exhibition Van Gogh’s paintings hang close to the Japanese prints which inspired them. He sought out subjects akin to those which he saw in the prints. There is a dramatic painting of a quarry, The Rock of Montmajour, dotted with trees, of which he writes, ‘You’ll well remember there are Japanese drawings where grasses and little trees grow there and there’. Hung opposite is Hiroshige’s dramatic print of the crags at Hakone with a huge crag, with grass and trees growing out of it, dwarfing the people and hanging at an impossible angle over the water.

 

The paintings Van Gogh did in Arles are very different from his earlier work. ‘After some time your vision changes, you see with a more Japanese eye, you feel colour differently,’ he wrote to Theo. He plays with colour, laying on bright flat areas of intense colour with impassioned brush strokes. He painted The Yellow House set against a flat blue sky almost more solid than the house itself and his bedroom and yellow bed using ‘flat plain tints like Japanese prints,’ with strong outlines, flat colour planes and no shadows. Inspired by the Japanese prints which hung around his studio, he applied thick black contour lines and played with extraordinary perspectives and viewpoints. He painted Almond Blossom, seen from below against a dazzling turquoise sky, in honour of the birth of his nephew, Theo’s son. In The Sower, the dramatic diagonal of the tree trunk cuts across the picture, silhouetted against a huge yellow sun.

Self-portrait dedicated to
Gauguin by Vincent van Gogh

In Arles Van Gogh hoped to enjoy his dream of a Japanese way of life. He imagined humble Japanese woodblock print artists living and working together like monks in a monastery and decided to set up an artists’ colony with his friend Paul Gauguin as the leader. Like Japanese artists, they exchanged self portraits. In the portrait he sent Gauguin he depicts himself as a very un-Buddha-like Japanese monk with a shaven head and intense wild eyes, somewhat slanted.

But as we know it didn’t work out. The collaboration with Gauguin came to an end, the artists’ colony fell through. Van Gogh cut off his ear, checked himself into a hospital and painted feverishly, producing a painting a day. When he couldn’t go outside he painted through the bars of his window.

The last part of this absorbing and fascinating exhibition takes us right inside Van Gogh’s studio, surrounded by the Japanese prints that he had pinned to the wall - unframed, working tools, some torn and paint-stained. He often mentions the cheeriness of the brightly-coloured prints of landscapes and beautiful women. Perhaps he hoped to find peace of mind by surrounding himself with such serene images. But alas, that was the one thing he was destined never to find.

Van Gogh and Japan at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, continues till June 24th 2018.




Lesley Downer’s latest novel, The Shogun’s Queen, an epic tale set in nineteenth century Japan, is out now in paperback. For more see www.lesleydowner.com.

All Van Gogh images © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

All other images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Cabinet of Curiosities: a letter from Vincent - by Sue Purkiss

It's lovely at this time of year, isn't it? - when primroses, daffodils and hyacinths are out, and the buds on winter-bare trees begin to break into blossom. My mother was a very keen gardener, but she never thought that almond and cherry trees were worth their space in the garden - "After all," she reasoned, "they're in blossom for such a short time, and the rest of the the year, they do nothing."

But I don't agree with her. Because for that short time, they are intensely beautiful. Beauty is often fleeting, but perhaps that's all the more reason to value it. And beauty at such a time - at the end of winter - represents new life and hope: it lifts the heart.

A hundred and twenty six years ago, a 37 year old man had a piece of good news. In many ways, he had had a difficult and rather sad life. He did not always get on easily with people; he had tried his hand at being an art dealer, and then a preacher, but things always went wrong: his emotions were too intense, he would put people off, and then feel hurt and bewildered when they rejected him. The one person who always stood by him was his brother Theo.

For some years now, he had decided to be an artist - but so far, he had had no commercial success, though other artists were beginning to recognise his ability. Recently, he had entered enthusiastically into a working partnership with a certain Paul Gauguin; it had all begun so very well, but it had ended so very, very badly. In the end, he had become so frantic, so unstable, that he had tried to cut off his own ear.

His name, of course, was Vincent Van Gogh.

In 1889, after the ear episode, he voluntarily committed himself to the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in Saint Remy. As he became calmer, he painted: at first the garden of the asylum and vases of flowers which he could work on inside, then the surrounding orchards and countryside. The rate at which he worked was astonishing.

Then, in February 1890, he received the piece of good news that I mentioned earlier. It was that Theo's wife Jo had given birth to a baby boy - their first, and as it turned out, only child. Vincent was so happy for them that he wanted to paint something - a gift, to celebrate the birth. St Remy is in Provence, in the south of France: perhaps, that year, there was a warm day in February - the kind of day that is itself a gift, a promise of spring to come. And perhaps the good news, for a while at least, drove away his demons, and he went out into the orchard, threw himself down on the ground, his hands clasped behind his head, gazed up at the blue sky through the branches of a flowering almond tree, and smiled.

And then he painted what he had seen, and sent the picture to Theo and Jo, who hung it in their baby's room. Jo wrote back a warm letter of thanks, in which she said that the baby - whom they called Vincent Willem - was a great admirer already of his uncle's works, and that he particularly liked to lie and look up at the sky-blue painting.

Well, Vincent's story did not, as we know, end happily. A few months later, he shot himself, and died two days later with Theo at his side. Theo survived him by less than a year.

But here is a happy ending of sorts. Jo took great care of Vincent's artistic legacy, and later, her son took over, and played a large part many years later in establishing a museum devoted to his uncle's work in Amsterdam. I was there this time last year, and was bowled over by Vincent's paintings - by the clarity and brilliance of the colours, by their energy and zest for life.

I don't want to put the painting into our cabinet of curiosities. It belongs where it is, where thousands of people see it every year. But I would like to put into it the letter in which Vincent wrote to his sister describing the painting he had begun for his new nephew. He doesn't say very much about it - you can see the letter here. (All Van Gogh's correspondence has been made accessible online by the Van Gogh Museum.)

For me, the letter is a direct link with the man, the artist. But it also represents hope: it says that despite his mental anguish, there was a moment when he had an impulse of pure joy, which he was able to translate onto canvas. He seized the fleeting moment and made of it something permanent. Isn't that what we'd all like to do?

The Vincent Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam: Sue Purkiss

Vincent Van Gogh must be one of the best-known and most popular painters of them all. Who wouldn’t recognise his painting of sunflowers? Or the self-portrait with the bandaged ear? Or the picture of a bedroom in his house in Arles? Parts of his life story are almost equally well-known: the story behind that bandaged ear, for instance.

And yet in his lifetime, he had little success, and much sadness. This much I knew. But after a recent visit to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, I know so much more. And his paintings – well, seeing them for real was an absolute revelation: reproductions simply don't do them justice. I have never, ever seen colours which sing from the canvas so brilliantly, with such luminosity, with such – ironically, given his suicide – zest for life.

The interior of the museum

The museum is a big, airy, modern building – so although it’s busy, it doesn’t feel crowded. Do take advantage of the offer of an audio-guide – it really helps to tell the story. And it may not be quite the story you expect: it’s ultimately sad - he was only 37 when he died - but he lived his life with such intensity: and you only have to look at the paintings to see that he experienced a great deal of joy alongside the pain, and to read some of his letters to know that he had friends and family who loved him.

Detail

You begin with some of the many self-portraits that he did. He often used himself as his subject because he couldn’t afford to pay a model: he had a small income from his brother Theo, an art-dealer, but in his lifetime, he made very little from his work. The paintings are created from tiny brush strokes. When you look closely, you can hardly believe the colours he uses; his hair, which from a distance is reddish, is made up of individual short strokes of green, red and orange; his (blue) coat consists of two shades of blue, orange and white. He is aptly quoted as saying: “You’ll certainly see that I have my own way of looking.’

You’ll search in vain for a smiling Vincent – but then you don’t generally see a smiling Rembrandt either: if you’re painting yourself, it’s difficult to reapply your best smile every time you glance in the mirror – much easier to stick to a serious face.

As far as I recall, the actual narrative of Van Gogh’s life begins on the first floor. All through, there are examples of other painters’ works which inspired him. He strikes me as being touchingly humble about his work – so eager to learn. As a young man he made a series of false starts, and only began to learn painting (at Theo’s suggestion) when he was 27. He threw himself into it, at first combining his passion for painting with a deep-felt respect for the lives of peasants, which he wanted to capture on canvas. The Potato Eaters is perhaps his best known work from this period; it is an interior, showing five peasants eating their evening meal round a table, their heavy faces lit by a single overhead lamp. Vincent had high hopes for this painting, but it was greeted with criticism and incomprehension. The museum has a large collection of his letters, and they reveal how hurt he was by this response; his reaction was to conclude that he still had a great deal to learn, and he would study until he had learnt it. At the end of 1885 he went to Paris, and his palette quickly changed, becoming lighter, luminous, far more colourful. His world opened up: he saw paintings by Delacroix, Jean-Francois Millet, Manet and Monet: he met Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Signac and Emil Bernard. And, fatefully, he met Paul Gauguin.

Montmarte: windmills and allotments

In 1888, Vincent decided to go south, to Arles in Provence. He was hopeful that the warmer climate would improve his health – but also he thought he might find there brighter colours, a more vivid light, and in this he was not disappointed. In the south, he painted some of his most enchanting pictures – the three images of blossoming orchards, the view of his street with lemon and yellow ochre buildings in front of a deep cobalt blue sky, the iconic sunflower paintings, and the picture of a bedroom, again in shades of yellow and blue. This is such a familiar picture it’s almost become a cliché, yet when you see it for real, its impact is breathtaking: I have never seen colours which sing out from the canvas with such brilliance.

I've included this, but no reproduction remotely does justice to the original painting.

He rented four rooms in what became known as the Yellow House, and hoped to found there an artists’ colony – a ‘Studio of the South’. He thought Gauguin with his dominant, charismatic personality, would be the perfect man to lead it, and he invited him to come and stay.

The two men admired each other’s work, but before long they began to argue. Gauguin wasn’t particularly interested in painting from nature, whereas to Vincent, nature was immensely important as an inspiration. Gauguin expected others to defer to him; Vincent tried his methods but found them alien. My impression is that Vincent, emotional and needy, was eager for Gauguin to like him, hopeful that this partnership might lead to great things. Revealingly, the museum guide tells us that Vincent painted companion pictures of chairs. One, elegantly curved and polished, represented Gauguin: for himself, Vincent chose a simple, sturdily constructed kitchen chair with no airs and graces.

Vincent’s frail mental health could not cope with the disappointment when it all fell apart, and just before Christmas a crisis was reached when he cut off a piece of his left ear. Two days later Gauguin left Arles, and Vincent was admitted to hospital.

Almond blossom

In May the following year, Vincent Van Gogh was voluntarily admitted to an asylum in St Rémy, not far from Arles. Even now, he didn’t stop painting: still lives and interpretations of religious works by other painters when he was confined indoors, paintings of the gardens when he was allowed outside. There’s a touching story behind one of the paintings he did at this time. It’s of almond blossom set against a turquoise sky. It’s utterly beautiful, and he painted it as a gift for Theo and his wife Jo on the birth of their baby – whom they had named Vincent. It’s expressive of such joy, such a sense of new life – and yet in a few months, Vincent would be dead by his own hand. Less than a year after that, loyal Theo would also be dead.

But Jo was convinced of the importance of her brother-in-law’s art, and she proved to be an excellent trustee of his work. Her son, the baby for whom Vincent had painted the almond blossom, took over the task, and eventually played a key part in the opening, in 1973, of the museum.

It’s very sad that in his own lifetime, Vincent did not know how widely-known, highly-respected, and well-loved he would one day become. But recently, this was redressed by the magic of television - and story-telling - when Vincent was the subject of an episode of Doctor Who, the iconic British TV sci-fi series. At the end of the episode, the Doctor brings Vincent forward in time, and takes him to a special exhibition of his work. Bill Nighy, doing a brilliant turn as the curator of the exhibition, is asked by the Doctor to assess how Vincent’s reputation stands at the beginning of the 21^st century. Watch, but have a handkerchief ready!

I can’t recommend this marvellous museum highly enough. (It has an excellent cafe too!) But do book in advance to avoid the queues. You can book online, or you can buy a voucher when you get there from one of the tourist shops – if you get there reasonably early, as we did, you won’t then have to queue for very long at all.