![]() ![]() Van Gogh made paintings and drawings depicting the different seasons throughout his later career, although not necessarily as a series, and continued to link them to the life of the peasants, as in his many drawings of peasants harvesting dating to the summer of 1885. Representations of the seasons, symbolised by human activities, have been an important theme in art since the Middle Ages and continued to be a great source of inspiration for the French School of Barbizon painters, whom Van Gogh admired. Van Gogh knowingly placed himself within a long and rich tradition with this subject. Van Gogh chose the theme of the four seasons for a series of watercolours while living and working as an artist in The Hague (1881–83), and other works from that time also reveal an early interest in the seasons. ![]() Van Gogh deeply loved nature and had a lifelong fascination for the four seasons and their associations with human life. ![]() He constantly found inspiration for these subjects in visual art and literature as well as in nature itself. Still lifes by Van Gogh are also often clearly connected with particular seasons, not only his flower still lifes of spring or summer bouquets but also compositions featuring the bounty of the autumn harvest, including potatoes, apples and pumpkins – works that can justifiably be described as rural still lifes. His oeuvre contains depictions of the seasons not only in the form of landscapes representing spring, summer, autumn or winter but also portrayals of people engaged in seasonal work, such as reaping the wheat (summer), sowing a crop and harvesting the grapes (autumn) and gathering wood in the snow (winter). And to feel – this has always been so and always will be’. It is something to always be with the mowers and the peasant girls, in summer with the big sky above, in the winter by the black fireplace. In June 1885 he wrote: ‘It is something to be deep in the snow in winter, to be deep in the yellow leaves in the autumn, to be deep in the ripe wheat in the summer, to be deep in the grass in the spring. Van Gogh experienced a feeling of eternity in the passing of the seasons, a sentiment that would become essential to his work. Van Gogh was a very religious person as a young man, but he developed a certain pantheist view of life during his years as an artist. The cycle of the seasons demonstrated for him the greatness of nature and the existence of a higher force. They represented the ever-continuing cycle of nature – birth, bloom, maturity, death – which, naturally, is also the life cycle of humanity. The changing seasons were an aspect of nature that Vincent van Gogh found particularly captivating. The exhibition is organised by the National Gallery of Victoria and Art Exhibitions Australia The exhibition is accompanied by a scholarly catalogue, a children’s publication, a suite of programs including talks, tours, events and NGV Friday Nights featuring live music, bars and dining. Van Gogh and the Seasons features works lent by leading international museums, including the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, and the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, which respectively holds the largest and second largest collection of Van Gogh’s works in the world. ![]() Drawing extensively from Van Gogh’s personal letters and research into his interest in literature and nature, Van Gogh and the Seasons provides insight into the influences and themes that dominate much of this visionary artist’s work. Viewers are invited to explore Van Gogh’s profound connection to nature through nearly 50 paintings and drawings, many of which depict places that were the setting for defining moments in the artist’s tumultuous life. Van Gogh and the Seasons is presented within sections devoted to each of the four seasons. Curated by Sjraar van Heugten, independent art historian and former Head of Collections at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Van Gogh and the Seasons is exclusive to Melbourne and presents the largest collection of Van Gogh artworks to ever travel to Australia. The National Gallery of Victoria, in partnership with Art Exhibitions Australia, presents Van Gogh and the Seasons for the 2017 Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition. ![]()
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