These are examples of drawing materials used by Van Gogh, such as charcoal, chalk, graphite and India ink. In Arles Van Gogh cut his own pens from the reeds growing along the banks of the canals. 🖋️

📝 ‘My dear little sister, learn to dance or fall in love’, wrote Vincent to his sister Willemien in October 1887. He wanted her to enjoy life, something that he sometimes struggled with.

🌻 Vincent van Gogh, Couple Dancing (1885)

This painting makes you feel like you’re right next to the field. As if you are looking through Vincent’s eyes. Van Gogh painted this wheatfield while living in Paris and discovered the rural scene just outside of the crowded city. It’s hard to imagine that Paris is so close by!

The square landscapes of Klimt and Van Gogh are very similar. Both artists used lines and sections to stylise forms in the landscape, and both used loose brushwork.

1. 🖼 Gustav Klimt, Avenue in Schloss Kammer Park (1912)
2. 🌻 Vincent van Gogh, The Pink Orchard (1888)

‘How short life is, and how like smoke. Which isn’t a reason to despise the living — on the contrary. So we’re right to attach ourselves more to artists than to paintings.' Wrote Vincent to Theo.

🌻 Vincent van Gogh, Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette (1886)

While in Antwerp, Vincent discovered Japanese prints, the ukiyo-e. He collected the prints and was inspired by them for his own art. ‘…we wouldn’t be able to study Japanese art, it seems to me, without becoming much happier and more cheerful’, wrote Vincent in 1888. 📝

‘How much good it does a person if one is in a gloomy mood to walk on the empty beach and look into the grey-green sea with the long white lines of the waves’, wrote Vincent to his brother Theo in 1882.

🌻 Vincent van Gogh, View of the Sea at Scheveningen (1882)

‘… a victory achieved after lifelong work and effort is better than one achieved more quickly’, wrote Vincent to his brother Theo in 1878. The brothers agreed on this point.

🌻 Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait with Pipe (1886)

It is often claimed that 'Wheatfield with Crows' was Van Gogh’s last work. The menacing sky, the crows and the dead-end path are said to refer to the end of his life approaching. But that is just a persistent myth. In fact, he made several other works after this one. 🌻

Which colours did Vincent use to make this painting? At first glance, you only see some tree trunks covered in ivy, and some patches of light on the ground. But when you zoom in, you see a sea of individual brushstrokes, in countless different colours. 🎨

📝 'On the contrary, the other violet bouquet standing out against a striking lemon yellow background with other yellow tones in the vase and the base on which it rests is an effect of terribly disparate complementaries that reinforce each other by their opposition’.

‘And mind my dear fellow, Paris is Paris, there is but one Paris and however hard living may be here and if it became worse and harder even – the french air clears up the brain and does one good – a world of good.’

Note: The sketchbook in this video is a replica of the original

This is the first painting that Vincent made when he arrived in Arles. He saw this butcher’s shop looking out from the Carrel hotel and restaurant, where he stayed for the first few weeks of his time in Arles.

🌻Vincent van Gogh, View of a Butcher's Shop (1888)

🌳 ‘And the green has such a distinguished quality. It’s the dark patch in a sun-drenched landscape, but it’s one of the most interesting dark notes, the most difficult to hit off exactly that I can imagine. Now they must be seen here against the blue, in the blue, rather.'

A pot plant like this is something you expect to see on a windowsill, not in a Van Gogh painting. And yet he still decided to paint it! The work was a colour study. Vincent wanted the colours to intensify each other.

🌻 Vincent van Gogh, Flowerpot with Garlic Chives (1887)

In 1889 Vincent was invited to exhibit his work by Les XX (‘The Twenty’), a progressive Belgian artists’ society. Vincent picked out six paintings – matched by colour – on the theme of the seasons. It wasn’t until after his death that his first solo exhibition was organised.

#vangoghinspires by Jacques Trouvé✨

Van Gogh was in a hurry to paint lots of works as quickly as he could. He wrote to his brother: ‘… but for Christ’s sake get the paint to me without delay. The season of orchards in blossom is so short…’

🌻 Vincent van Gogh, Blossoming Peach Trees (1888)

Last Saturday we welcomed you during the Museum Night in Amsterdam! You have danced, sang, made art, viewed art and much more. We had a great time, thanks for passing by and see you next year!🌻