Van Gogh and the Seasons

Judy and I took a trip into the National Gallery of Victoria to see the Van Gogh exhibition. It was pretty popular and we had quite a queue for the tickets.  Eventually we got in...

As with all these overseas exhibitions it was very well put together.  The exhibit was put together by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Robin and I had been there last year and it was not quite what we expected as there were not that many of his famous paintings there.  But on reflection, that would be the case as they are in gallerys all over the world, not in Amsterdam.

This exhibition started with a short film depicting the different seasons, something that is not that obvious in Australia, but very obvious in Europe.  Then it showed the influences on Van Gogh of prints of etchings and Japanese prints, both of which he collected.  Lastly  came several rooms of the painting of Van Gogh himself, including some well known ones which were on loan from other gallerys and even private owners.

This is a view of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, painted in 1888 and on
 loan from the Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo.

The rooms of exhibits were separated by what looked like mirrors but were in fact very fine screens.
 It was a bit off putting as the 'mirror' obviously never showed what we expected. 

 

After an hour or so in the exhibition we went into the garden of the gallery as there is usually some new exhibit there.  The current installation was great fun for the school trip that was there - it was a car wash, with real water.  The spray was very very fine, rather like the outdoor air conditioners at the Tennis Centre. The kids just loved it - they did not get too wet running repeatedly through the spray but some of them were decidedly damp.