TO UNDERSTAND VINCENT VAN GOGH’S COLORS PERCEIVED IN THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT, IN THE LANDSCAPES, IN THE DETAILS, IN THE LIGHT OF THE TWILIGHT, IN THE SUNRISE, IN THE ART STUDIES, IN THE MOORLANDS, ON THE BROWN CARTS, ON THE MUD ROADS, IN THE HUTS, FROM THE LIGHT OF THE OIL LAMPS, ON THE SHAVES ILLUMINATED BY THE SUN, IN THE BACKLIGHTED POPLAR TREES, ON THE FIELDS OF YOUNG WHEAT, ON THE EARTH, ON THE OAK TREES, ON THE BLACK CROWS, ON THE MOSS, ON THE BLACK BREAD, IN THE ORCHARDS, IN THE SKIES OF VAN GOGH, IT IS ADVISABLE TO READ HIS LETTER TO THEO VAN GOGH, HIS BROTHER, BEFORE ENTERING THE MUDEC IN MILAN, BECAUSE IT WILL OFFER YOU THE KEY TO READING HIS WORKS. UNTIL JANUARY 28
Drenthe, novembre 1883
Dear brother,
I have to tell you about a trip of mine to Zweeloo, the village where Liebermann lived for a long time and where he carried out studies of his painting for the last Salon, the one with the washerwomen.
Termeulen and Jules Bakhuyzen also stayed there for a long time.
Imagine a journey across the moors at three in the morning, on an open cart (I went with my landlord, who had to go to the market in Assen) along a road that here they call diek, embanked with mud instead of sand.
It was even stranger than going by barge.
At the first gleam of dawn, when the roosters began to crow everywhere, next to the huts scattered all over the moor and the few we passed – surrounded by slender poplars whose yellowed leaves could be heard falling to the ground – the squat old tower of a cemetery, the earthen enclosure wall, the birch hedge – the flat landscape of moorland and wheat fields – everything, everything then became identical to the most beautiful Corots.
A tranquility, a mystery, a peace like only he has painted.
When we then arrived at Zweeloo at six in the morning it was still dark; I had seen the real Corots in the morning, even earlier.
The entrance to the village was magnificent: huge mossy roofs, stables, shepherds and chicken coops. The houses, with wide facades, are located here among oak trees of a magnificent bronze color.
The moss has shades of golden green; in the soil, reddish, bluish and yellowish shades all tending towards dark purple, grey; the green of the wheat fields has tones of inexpressible purity; on the wet trunks, tones of black, which contrasted with the golden shower of autumn leaves that swirled and then gathered together in clusters – leaves hanging in scattered groups, as if the wind had just brought them there, with the sky that between one and the other sent out flashes – from the poplars, the birches, the apple and lemon trees.
The sky was clear, bright, not white but a lilac color that was difficult to grasp, white with red, blue and yellow flashes in which everything was reflected; she felt it everywhere above everything, vaporous, blending into the light mist below – blending everything into a range of delicate greys.
However, I did not find a single painter in Zweeloo and people told me that not a single one came in the winter.
I, on the other hand, hope to be there this winter.
Since there were no painters, I decided not to wait for my landlord to return, but to walk back and do some drawings along the way.
So I began to make a sketch of an orchard, the one from which Liebermann had drawn his large painting.
Then I walked back along the road we had taken in the morning. At the moment the whole countryside around Zweeloo is completely covered – as far as the eye can see – with young wheat, the softest green I have ever seen.
This gives a beautiful color effect against the lilac-white sky.
I don’t think you can paint it, but for me it’s the basis of what you need to know to understand the keynote of other effects.
A black spot of land – flat – infinite – a clear lilac-white sky, very delicate.
Young corn poking out of the ground makes it look moldy. This is basically how the good, fertile areas of Drenthe are; all in a misty atmosphere.
Think of Brion’s “Dernier jour de la crèation”; yesterday I thought I understood the meaning of that painting.
The non-fertile land of Drenthe is the same – only the black land is even blacker – like soot – and not black – purplish in the furrows, covered with rotting heather and peat.
I see this everywhere – the reliefs against the infinite background; on the moor, the peat sheds; in the fertile areas, the gigantic and primitive structures of farms and sheepfolds, very low walls and enormous moss-covered roofs.
All around, large oak trees.
When you walk for hours and hours in this countryside, you really feel that there is nothing but that infinite expanse of land – the green mold of the wheat or heather and that infinite sky.
Horses and men look like ants.
We don’t notice anything, no matter how big it may be, we only know that there is the earth and the sky. However, as a small particle looking at other small particles – to neglect the infinite – each particle turns out to be a Millet.
I passed an identical old church, exactly identical to the Grèville church in Millet’s little painting in the Luxembourg museum; instead of that little farmer with the spade in the painting in question, there was a shepherd with a flock of sheep walking along the hedge.
In the background you couldn’t see the real sea, only a sea of young wheat, a sea of furrows rather than waves.
The same effect resulted.
Then I saw some men plowing, very busy – a sand cart, some paths, some manure carts.
In a small inn along the road I drew an old woman spinning, a little dark fairy-tale image, silhouetted against a light window, through which you could see the clear sky and a soft green path, with a few geese pecking at the grass.
Then came dusk – think what peace, what tranquility!
Imagine a small avenue of tall poplars with autumn leaves, imagine a wide road, all black with mud, with an immense moor on the right and another infinite moor on the left, a few black and triangular huts built of pieces of peat, from whose window the red light of a small fire shines, with some puddles of dirty, yellowish water, reflecting the sky, in which some trunks are rotting; imagine that swamp at dusk, with a white sky above it; in every part, a contrast of black and white.
In that swamp a rough figure – a shepherd – a pile of oval masses, half wool and half mud, bumping into each other, pushing each other – the flock. You see them coming forward – you find yourself among them, you turn and go after them.
Slowly and reluctantly they continue their journey along the muddy road.
However, in the distance looms the farm – a few mossy roofs and piles of straw and peat among the poplars.
Again a triangular – dark image: the sheepfold. The door is wide open, like the entrance to a dark cave.
The sky shines through the cracks in the planks.
The entire caravan of lumps, wool and mud disappears into that cave – the shepherd and a woman with a lantern close the door behind them.
That return of the flock at dusk was the finale of the symphony I heard yesterday.
That day passed like a dream, and I was so taken by that soulful music that I even forgot to eat and drink – I had had a piece of black bread and a cup of coffee in a small inn where I had drawn the spinning wheel.
The day had passed and from dawn to dusk, or rather, from one night to the following night, I was lost in that symphony.
I went home and sat by the fire and realized I was very hungry.
But see how it is down here.
You feel exactly as if you had visited the “Cent chef-d’oeuvres” exhibition, for example; What do you take home from a day like that? Just a lot of sketches.
Yet it also brings home something else: a calm passion for work.
The works on display come from the Dutch Museum Kröller-Müller of Otterlo, exposed as follows:
The Dutch period of Vincent Van Gogh with the works: Moulin de la Galette, Self-portrait, Interior of a restaurant, Still life with plaster statuette.
The Parisian years with the works: Orchard bordered by cypresses, Seascape near Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, The green vineyard, Portrait of Joseph-Michel Ginoux.
The Arles period with works: Landscape with sheaves of grain and rising moon, Stack of wheat under a cloudy sky, Pine trees in the garden of the asylum, Olive grove with two olive pickers, Tree trunks in the grass, The ravine (Les Peiroulets).
Flanked by a selection of original editions of art books and magazines, coming from the curator’s collection and the Malatestiana Library.
The books and magazines are visible throughout the entire exhibition itinerary, curated by the art historian Professor Francesco Poliyes Mariella Guzzoniresearcher and curator of “Van Gogh: Living with Books”e Aurora Caneparicurator of the collection of the Edoardo Chiossone Oriental Art Museum, in Genoa, curator of the section “Van Gogh and Japonisme”.
Essential bibliography:
“VINCENT VAN GOGH LETTERE A THEO“, edited by Massimo Cescon, with an introductory essay by Karl Jaspers (1954), Guanda Editore, Parma, 1984.
© Domenico Tangaro
