Van Gogh - Metropolitan Museum of Art , NYC

Cypresses, 1889 (click image to enlarge)

Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

"Cypresses" was painted in late June 1889, shortly after Van Gogh began his year long voluntary stay as a patient in the asylum in Saint-Remy.  The subject, which he found "as beautiful of line and proportion as an Egyptian obelisk, both captivated and challenged the artist: "It is a splash of black in a sunny landscape, but it is one of the most interesting black notes, and the most difficult to hit off exactly that I can imagine."  Van Gogh's initial fascination with cypresses resulted in these paintings" two showing the "big and massive trees" at close range, in vertical format (this and one in the Kroller-Muller Museum, Orrerlo), and a majestic horizontal view "Wheat Field with Cypresses", Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Van Gogh - Metropolitan Museum of Art , NYC

The Flowering Orchard (click image to enlarge)

Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

This painting belongs to a series of fourteen blossoming orchards that Van Gogh painted in spring, 1888, shortly after his arrival in Arles, the Provencal town in the south of France where he worked from February 1888 until May 1889.  The present example, which includes a scythe and rake, is one of only two orchards that allude to human presence or labor.  The motif and Van Gogh's stylized treatment are related to Japanese prints.

Van Gogh - Metropolitan Museum of Art , NYC

Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, 1890 (click image to enlarge)

Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

This still life is not mentioned in Van Gogh's production.  Ostensibly, it is closest to the mixed bouquets of summer flowers that he produced in quantity in Paris (1889-90).  However, it was not until later, in Saint-Remy and Auvers (1889-90), when he painted a few still lifes which were of an entirely different character, handling and peculiarities of style.  This Bouquet seems to be a singular instance when Van Gogh applied the rigors of his mature landscape style to a still-life subject.  It is most certainly a late work, made just shortly before his death, on July 29, 1890 in Auvers.

Van Gogh - Metropolitan Museum of Art , NYC

Shoes - 1888 (Click Image to Enlarge)

Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

Van Gogh painted several still lives of shoes or boots during his Paris period.  This picture, painted later in Aries, evinces a unique to the earlier motif.

Van Gogh - Metropolitan Museum of Art , NYC

Roses 1890  (Click Image to Enlarge)

  Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

In May, 1890, just before his departure from the asylum in Saint-Remy, Van Gogh painted an exceptional group of four still lifes, to which both the Museum's Roses and Irises Belong.  Striking in their bouquets and their counterparts - an upright composition of irises (Van gogh Museum Amsterdam) and a horizontal composition of roses (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) --were conceived as a decorative ensemble, like the suite of sunflowers he had made earlier in Arles.  Traces of pink along the tabletop and rose petals in the present painting, which have faded overtime, offer a faint reminder of the formerly vivid "canvas of pink roses against a yellow green background in a green vase."

Van Gogh - Metropolitan Museum of Art , NYC

Wheat Fields with cypresses (1889)

Writing to his brother, Theo, from the asylum in Saint Remy in early July 1889, Van Gogh described his latest work in the series he had begun in June: " I have a canvas of cypresses with some ears of wheat, some poppies, a blue sky like a piece of Scotch plaid, the former painted with a thick impasto... and the wheat field in the sun, which represents the extreme heat, very thick too."  Van Gogh regarded this sun-drenched landscape as one of his "best" summer canvases and repeated the composition three times: in a reed pen drawing (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) and in two oil paintings made later that fall (National Gallery, London, and private collection).

Van Gogh - Metropolitan Museum of Art , NYC

La Berceuse (Woman Rocking a Cradle 1889)

Metropolitan Museum of Art New York

Of the five versions of Van Gogh's portrait of Augustine Roulin, wife of his friend the postmaster of Arles, The present canvas is the one the sitter chose for herself, Van Gogh remarked that "she had a good eye and took the best."  He began the portraits just before his breakdown in Arles, in December 1888, and completed them in early 1889.  As he worked on the successive versions, the composition (which he titled La Berceuse, meaning "lullaby, or woman who rocks the cradle," indicated by the rope the sitter holds) took on added meaning.  As he revealed in his letters, the material image became the focus of literary and symbolic associations, ranging from the writings of Dutch and French novelists to the consoling music of Berhoz and Wagnet.  Van Gogh envisioned La Bercuse as the center of a triptych, flanked by Sunflowers, like candelabra.

National Art Gallery Exhibitions

http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/index.shtm#upcoming

Brain-hacking art: Making an emotional impression

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727781.300-brainhacking-art-making-an-emotional-impression.html

Several Obsessions, United on the Canvas

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/arts/design/24arcimboldo.html?src=twt&twt=nytimesarts

A Monet sets a record

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/arts/design/25auct.html?ref=claude_monet

In France, a Rediscovery of Monet

See this article on Claude Monet works on display with contribution from major museums.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/arts/25iht-monet.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimesarts

Claude Monet

Jean Monet on his Hobby, 1872 - Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

Claude Monet

Bouquet of Sunflowers, 1881 - Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

Edouard Manet

Boating 1874  Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

Claude Monet

Regatta at Sainte Adresse  1867

Metropolitan Museum of Art New York

Claude Monet

Vetheuil in Summer, 1880  - Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

Claude Monet

Spring (Fruit Trees in Bloom) 1873  Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Reclining Nude 1883)

(click image to enlarge)

Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

                                                
Nudes and the grand tradition ofclassical art preoccupied Renoir in the 1880s.In this painting, he paid homage to Ingres"s Grande Odalisque (Musee du Louvre, Paris), although he transformed Ingres's cool courtesan into a healthy, pink-cheeked girl, and the harem into an Impressionist landscape reminiscent of the Channel coast.

Claude Monet

Landscape: The Parc Monceau, 1876

                                                    Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

Edouard Manet

Madame Manet - (Suzanne Leenhoff 1830-1906 at Bellevue 1880)

Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

Claude Monet

Vase of Flowers ca 1880 

Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Lady in the Park  (Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City)

Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas - A Woman Seated by a Vase of Flowers (Madame Paul Valpincon) 1865
New York Metropolitan Museum of Art

Edouard Manet

 

Fishing (1862-63)

(click image to enlarge)

     Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas - Dancers Pink and Green (ca 1890)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Bouquet of Chrysanthemums- 1881

(click image to enlarge)

Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

Renoir felt that he had greater freedom to experiment in still lifes thanin figure paintings.  "When I paint flowers, I feel free to try out tones and values and worry less about destroying the canvas," he told the writer
Georges Riviere.  "I would not do this with a figure painting since there I would care about destroying the work."

French Impressionism - Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - (EugeneMurer 1841-1906), 1877

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                                             New York Metropolitan of Art, NYC

Articles on Impressionism

Here is a neat story on impressionism.  If your local to Long Island, NY well worth the visit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/nyregion/19artsli.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion

Gallery Showings of French Art Imaging from 1250-1400

Great info on Getty Gallery showing of French...http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/imagining_past_france/index.html

French Impressionism

See this article on the French Impressionists 1800's


http://arthistory.about.com/od/impressionism/ig/impressionism/03_people.htm

French Art History On Impressionism

Try to site for information on the French Impressionist era

http://arthistory.about.com/od/famous_names/u/artists.htm#s6

French Art History

This is a wonderful website on French Artists.  http://www.artcyclopedia.com/nationalities/French.html