Van Gogh in Provence: Modernising Tradition exhibition, Arles

The third retrospective devoted to Vincent van Gogh at the Fondation, it confirms the institution’s major role in facilitating an ongoing examination of the artist’s work and thinking, namely by presenting these latter in constant interaction with contemporary artistic production. Thus Van Gogh in Provence: Modernizing Tradition is accompanied by a concurrent solo show of British painter Glenn Brown.

Selected by Sjraar van Heugten, one of the world’s foremost experts on Van Gogh, the 31 paintings on display offer a panorama of seven years of intense activity, culminating in the artist’s stay in Provence, during which he produced some 500 works. 

Over the course of the rooms, Van Gogh’s palette becomes – as he puts it himself – more “exaggerated”, his brushstroke more forceful and his composition more audacious, yet all the while preserving a remarkable continuity in his choice of motif. Van Gogh constantly experiments with ways of modernising landscape, portraiture and the still life – the traditional genres to which he remains unwaveringly attached, following in the steps of his revered masters: Rembrandt, Hals, Delacroix, Millet, Breton and other artists of the Barbizon School. 

The canvases that have been selected allow us to follow Van Gogh’s artistic quest from its beginnings right up to his death: in Nuenen in the Dutch province of Brabant, where his humanism leads him to portray the rugged existence of rural peasants; in Paris, where he paints his own portrait for the first time and ventures upon vibrant colour contrasts in floral still lifes; in Provence, where he finds the glorious southern light and which exalts the face of nature; and finally at Auvers-sur-Oise, whose wheat fields captivate him one last time and open up the path to contemporary abstraction.

Entrance is 9 euros per adult with concession for 0ver 65's and children. 

The exhibition is open daily from 14th May to 11th Septemebr 2016. 

Visit the website for more information.