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Van Gogh Museum Suggests Artist's Last Painting Has Long Been Misidentified
By Meilan Solly/ Smart News: Keeping You Current/ Smithsonian/ smithsonianmag.com
"Experts argue that the abstract “Tree Roots” is a more likely candidate than the oft-cited “Wheatfield With Crows”
It’s easy to see why many art lovers are quick to identify “Wheatfield With Crows” as Vincent van Gogh’s last painting: From the darkening storm clouds visible on the horizon to the staccato brushstrokes of the painting’s eponymous birds, the scene screams tragedy.
But a major piece of evidence—namely, a letter written by the Post-Impressionist that dates the work’s creation closer to July 10, 1890, a full two-and-a-half weeks before he committed suicide—contradicts this attribution. Instead, Zachary Small reports for Hyperallergic, researchers from Amsterdam’s Vincent van Gogh Museum now believe that a lesser-known canvas titled “Tree Roots” was actually the artist’s final work.
The shift in thinking isn’t an entirely new development. In 2012, art historians Bert Maes and Louis van Tilborgh made a convincing argument for the painting’s place in van Gogh’s oeuvre, pointing out that “Tree Roots” is one of only two unfinished works dating to the artist’s final days. As Small explains, van Gogh rarely left canvases incomplete.
A 2016 show staged at the Van Gogh Museum further reinforced the attribution, with the painting’s accompanying wall text explicitly identifying “Tree Roots” as van Gogh’s probable last work. Reviewing the show for the Guardian, Jonathan Jones wrote that curators were eager to dismiss “sensational interpretations” of “Wheatfield with Crows” as a manifestation of the artist’s inner strife. By emphasizing “Tree Roots” over the better-known work, Jones argues, the museum revealed how its “jagged strokes, expressive unreal colors … and empty areas of canvas are just as suggestive as those menacing crows.”
Vincent van Gogh, "Tree Roots," 1890 (Public domain)
Vincent van Gogh, "Wheatfield With Crows," 1890 (Public domain)
Richard
By Meilan Solly/ Smart News: Keeping You Current/ Smithsonian/ smithsonianmag.com
"Experts argue that the abstract “Tree Roots” is a more likely candidate than the oft-cited “Wheatfield With Crows”
It’s easy to see why many art lovers are quick to identify “Wheatfield With Crows” as Vincent van Gogh’s last painting: From the darkening storm clouds visible on the horizon to the staccato brushstrokes of the painting’s eponymous birds, the scene screams tragedy.
But a major piece of evidence—namely, a letter written by the Post-Impressionist that dates the work’s creation closer to July 10, 1890, a full two-and-a-half weeks before he committed suicide—contradicts this attribution. Instead, Zachary Small reports for Hyperallergic, researchers from Amsterdam’s Vincent van Gogh Museum now believe that a lesser-known canvas titled “Tree Roots” was actually the artist’s final work.
The shift in thinking isn’t an entirely new development. In 2012, art historians Bert Maes and Louis van Tilborgh made a convincing argument for the painting’s place in van Gogh’s oeuvre, pointing out that “Tree Roots” is one of only two unfinished works dating to the artist’s final days. As Small explains, van Gogh rarely left canvases incomplete.
A 2016 show staged at the Van Gogh Museum further reinforced the attribution, with the painting’s accompanying wall text explicitly identifying “Tree Roots” as van Gogh’s probable last work. Reviewing the show for the Guardian, Jonathan Jones wrote that curators were eager to dismiss “sensational interpretations” of “Wheatfield with Crows” as a manifestation of the artist’s inner strife. By emphasizing “Tree Roots” over the better-known work, Jones argues, the museum revealed how its “jagged strokes, expressive unreal colors … and empty areas of canvas are just as suggestive as those menacing crows.”
Vincent van Gogh, "Tree Roots," 1890 (Public domain)
Vincent van Gogh, "Wheatfield With Crows," 1890 (Public domain)
Richard