Here she is again ...
This actual palette gives a good idea of what's different, difficult, special about this guy:
Great spaces ...
Here's the account:
"Four … hours … later … Kind of exhausting! Pretty great. What a world class place! And the artist—he’s no Rembrandt, is he? He’s not Raphael, no Titian or Turner or Cezanne. He’s got all sorts of limitations. Not to mention the vulgarities that have grown up around him and his legacy, around his actual accomplishments. Some of these, inevitably, are present in this museum.
"Well that’s to think about, and to recognize. But if Van Gogh isn’t quite a Plenitude, he sure is some kind of sufficiency! Sharon and I made our way through separately, in our own fashion. Very good. Should I detail? I should not. It was a superb space, superbly presenting such superb material. Remember the Mulberry Tree, at the Norton Simon? Well take a look at Orchards in Blossom/View of Arles. At these Almond Blossoms, for his new-born nephew! At the Cypresses and the Two Women!! I don’t double exclaim very often. The Irises!! And his illness, the astounding or maybe pathological 75 paintings in the last 70 days, the positively Ypres-like Snow Covered Field and Harrow, the hard to deny terror, seemingly, of Wheat Field with Crows. The Landscape at Twilight!
"And that was just the museum's final floor, which records v.g.'s final dissolution. These days the facts of the case are
more clear, aren’t they? Leave these poor afflicted folk alone. After all, he also painted
the Harvest, didn’t he? Gave his life to it, and we’re the beneficiaries?
"There
were lots of supplemental paintings too, from other major figures, and other
major figures we know less about. (And then there’s the Van Gogh/Munch exhibit!
We race through one big gallery, and then leave enough to be enough.) Tired
feet! But boy was that worth it. Worth coming all the way over for, in fact. We
pause to note, with be/musement, that the Rijksmuseum is going to be a lot
bigger n’ deeper than this. It looks positively threatening over there. We’re
exhausted! Pretty happily though! That’s 164 paintings, plus another 42, that
we tried to do right by. Like I said, pretty great!"
