“VAN GOGH UP CLOSE” AT THE PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART: AN EXAMINATION OF LANDSCAPES FROM PROVENCE AND AUVERS AND A FEW STILL LIFES FROM PARIS, TOO

Posted on February 19, 2012December 30, 2015 by Susan Manfull

Befittingly, perhaps, we arrived in Philadelphia to find frigid temperatures and falling snow, just as van Gogh had found in Arles when he arrived from Paris 124 years ago on February 20th. It took van Gogh only three days before he and his easel were en plein air, painting one of two pieces aptly entitled Landscape with Snow (1888).For us, once inside the stunning exhibition of over 40 of van Gogh’s paintings, most of which were painted in the South of France, our fingers quickly thawed a...

VAN GOGH’S LAST YEAR IN PROVENCE: REFUGE IN AN ASYLUM, STARRY NIGHTS, FIELDS OF WHEAT, AND IRISES

Posted on February 5, 2012January 3, 2016 by Susan Manfull

Vincent van Gogh is on my mind again these days. Those Don McLean lyrics—“Starry, starry night, Paint your palette blue and grey, Look out on a summer's day, With eyes that know the darkness in my soul”—are playing over and over again in my head. (1) I have always loved van Gogh’s artwork—who isn’t moved by the sadness of Old Man in Sorrow, the humility of The Potato Eaters, the swirling shades of blue in Starry Night, or the striking beauty of his Irises—and, as a psychologist, I’ve long bee...