One Van Gogh Exhibition That Doesn't Deliver

Vincent van Gogh wasn't an easy man to get along with. 

"Few could put up with him and his fanatic fierceness," recalled Anthon van Rappard, who became friends and started painting with him in 1880 in Brussels. "Our relations lasted five years, and if I hadn't stayed calm during his outbursts, they wouldn't have endured so long." 

Van Gogh's Inner Circle, an exhibition at the Noordbrabants Museum in Den Bosch in the southern Netherlands, takes us through a history of Vincent's relationships -- blazing rows and simmering confrontations with his family and with fellow artists, as well as his deepest, most durable friendship with his younger brother Theo. 

It's a fascinating topic, but a rather underwhelming show. There are a lot of letters in glass cases, which is perhaps not surprising in an exhibition about friendships and working partnerships. But ultimately, particularly when we get to the late blossoming of van Gogh's career, there just isn't an awful lot of the great art you're hoping to see from the great artist, a couple of big international loans excepted, or from his associates such as Paul Gauguin. 

Anyway, this is the man himself, as pictured in a very realistic-looking portrait by the Australian Impressionist John Peter Russell in 1886, when van Gogh was making friends after his arrival in Paris. 'Vincent, pictor, amitié', reads the inscription. It's a very penetrating gaze that Russell has captured. 

Russell's picture is a good one, but this section dealing with Vincent's time in Paris is largely made up of portraits of his associates. Not very revealing, really, and you wonder why Gauguin is represented by this depiction of him by Georges Manzana-Pissarro (second son of Camille, since you ask), who was only about 16 at the time.

There is a Gauguin watercolour self-portrait from around the time of his turbulent two months together with van Gogh in the Yellow House in Arles, which culminated in Vincent cutting off his ear, but that's all we get in terms of pictures from Gauguin, who spoke of an 'incompatibility of temperament' between them.

The curators have obtained two major international loans from Vincent's Arles period, and they're portraits of women that van Gogh and Gauguin both painted. What a joy it would have been to see those depictions together. Unfortunately, the Noordbrabants Museum has timetabled its show at the same time as the big Gauguin Portraits exhibition at the National Gallery in London, so you can guess where the Gauguins have ended up....

Anyway, in Den Bosch from Rome is one of the several versions Vincent made of portraits of Marie Ginoux, the owner of the cafe in Arles where he rented a room for several months.

It's based on Gauguin's drawing of her, now in London on loan from San Francisco. 

Vincent's portrait of Augustine Roulin, the postman's wife, is the other highlight in Den Bosch, borrowed from Chicago. Holding a rope, she rocks a cradle that's out of view, in an homage to motherhood. 

Gauguin's picture of the same sitter has made its way from Saint Louis for the National Gallery show.

Paul Signac was another artist who visited van Gogh in Arles, and we do get two watercolours he made of the Yellow House. But rather disconcertingly, they were done in the 1930s, more than four decades later.

This exhibition is probably at its best when it deals with van Gogh's years in the Netherlands attempting to establish himself as an artist, before he went to France. Lots of the exhibits, naturally, are from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, which have the two biggest collections of Vincent's work.

Van Gogh's relationship with his parents was strained. There was a blazing row at Christmas 1881 when he refused to go to church, clearly not something that would go down well when his father was a pastor. He'd once admired his father and wanted to follow in his footsteps, but then abandoned his faith. When his father died unexpectedly in 1885, Vincent painted his picture of the preacher's Bible alongside his own copy of La joie de vivre by Emile Zola. Two mindsets in collision.

After that Christmas row, van Gogh met Sien Hoornik, a former prostitute, and began living with her in The Hague. She already had a daughter and was pregnant with a second child. She regularly posed for him and after the birth, she and her children moved in with him. For about a year, van Gogh enjoyed family life.

But that relationship, like so many others, broke down, and Vincent moved back to his parents in Nuenen.

This exhibition is actually generally well constructed and very informative, but it's sadly let down by the rather thin selection of paintings the curators have managed to attract to Den Bosch. You can only have so many van Gogh shows without running out of canvases....

Practicalities

Van Gogh's Inner Circle is on at the Noordbrabants Museum in Den Bosch (formally known as 's-Hertogenbosch) until January 12. It's open 1100 to 1700, Tuesday to Sunday. Full-price tickets are 15 euros and you can book them online here. The museum is in Den Bosch's museum quarter, a signposted walk from the city's central station that takes about 10-12 minutes. Using the excellent Dutch public-transport network, you can get to Den Bosch in just under an hour by train from Amsterdam Centraal, for example, with services every 10 minutes or so (you may need to change in Utrecht). You can check connections across the Netherlands on 9292.nl.

While you're in Den Bosch

Right next door to the Noordbrabants Museum is the city's Design Museum, which is showing the absolutely absorbing exhibition about Design in the Third Reich, open daily until January 19, one of the best things to see in the Netherlands this autumn. Advance booking with timed entry is absolutely essential as it's frequently sold out.

Images

John Peter Russell, Vincent van Gogh, 1886, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Georges Manzana-Pissarro, Portrait of Gauguin, Private collection
Vincent van Gogh, L’Arlésienne (Madame Ginoux), 1890. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome. By permission of Ministero per i Beni e delle Attività Culturali
Vincent van Gogh, Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle (La berceuse), 1889, The Art Institute of Chicago

Vincent van Gogh, Still Life with Bible, 1885, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Vincent van Gogh, Woman ('Sien') Seated near the Stove, 1882, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo