The Red Vineyard, in the collection of the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, is one of Van Gogh's most striking Provencal landscapes and the only painting sold by Van Gogh during his lifetime. Recently, the museum decided to protect it, using modern science and technology for the first time to examine its preservation status, which also allows "Red Vineyard" to show more little-known details.
The Red Vineyard is one of Van Gogh's most striking Provencal landscapes, and it is the only painting sold by Van Gogh during his lifetime. In March 1890, four months before his suicide, the painting sold for 400 francs (about £16) at an exhibition in Brussels.
The painting is now in the collection of the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, Russia. Recently, the museum decided to protect it, and for the first time, modern science and technology were used to check its preservation status so that it could be better preserved for a long time. This also allows Red Vineyard to show more little-known details.
Red Vineyards by Pushkin Conservation Studio, Moscow, 2021 Image credit: Pushkin Museum, Moscow
On 28 October 1888, Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin stumbled upon the vineyard on an evening walk, just five days after Gauguin's arrival in Arles. In Provence, the grapes are usually picked in September, but the harvest seems to have come later that year. Around October 11, Vincent wrote to his brother Theo: "There are even bunches of grapes weighing a kilogram – this year's grapes are growing very well, starting on a clear autumn." ”
Vincent described the scene of the vineyard he and Gauguin witnessed together: a red vineyard, like soaked in red wine. In the distance, it gradually turned yellow until a sun hung in the yellow-green sky, and the setting sun reflected in the fields after the rain, shining purple and sparkling yellow everywhere.
Although Van Gogh liked to paint landscapes outdoors, he used his imagination to complete "Red Vineyard" in his studio. Gauguin also encouraged Van Gogh to make his paintings more creative. There is no doubt that the two artists must have returned from a walk while drinking a glass or two of local provencal red wine while discussing the view of the vineyards.
Van Gogh, "The Red Vineyards" (Red Vineyards in Arles, Montmaggiore) (November 1888)
Image source: Pushkin Museum in Moscow
Van Gogh undoubtedly used warm colors to the extreme. The vines in the painting are much redder than people think, and Van Gogh depicts them as the color of the Virginia climbing tiger. The composition on the right side of the picture looks like a river, but it is actually a road, and the wet path after the rain reflects the shimmering light. In the late autumn afternoon, a huge sunset reflects the eerie yellow of the sky before it sets.
In the upper left corner, a row of trees obscures a road that stretches northeast from Arles. On the far right of the horizon, one can make out the ruins of the Monastery of Montmajour in the distance, which has been painted light blue.
An examination of Red Vineyard at the Pushkin Museum, sponsored by LG Signature, reveals important details about how the painting was painted. Parts of the sun and sky are formed by the pigment squeezed directly from the tube onto the canvas, which the artist sometimes flattens with his fingers.
A technical analysis showed that the color of the sky had partially disappeared. Van Gogh used chrome yellow pigments, which darken in light. His original yellow would be brighter and more striking.
Van Gogh also made changes to the composition. The man standing at the top right of the road was originally a woman wearing a skirt and a white top and a hat.
A conspicuous woman in the central foreground dressed in dark blue, leaning over a basket, was also added later. The woman on the far right, on the side of the road, dressed in traditional costume in Arles, said experts at the Pushkin Museum, who represented Van Gogh's friend Marie Ginoux, and that she and her husband ran the Café de la Gare, just a few doors from the artist's home and studio, the Yellow House.
Red Vineyard has an unusual history. In April 1889, Vincent sent the painting to Theo in Paris. Theo described it as "very pretty", hanging it in the Paris apartment he and his new wife, Jo Bonger, had just moved into.
A few months later, Van Gogh had the opportunity to exhibit several paintings at an exhibition organized by the Les Vingt Group in Brussels in January 1890, including the Red Vineyard, which he asked Theo to send. At the show, Anna Boch bought it and kept it until 1907.
Two early collectors: Anna Boch (Portrait of Anna Boch by Théo van Rysselberghe, 1892) and Ivan Morosov (Portrait of Ivan Abramovich Morosov) (Portrait of Ivan Abramović Morosov) with a painting by Henri Matisse, 1910). Photo credit: Michele and Donald D Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts
Two years later, Red Vineyard was acquired by Ivan Morosov, an avant-garde Moscow collector and textile mill owner. The asking price has risen to 30,000 francs, which indicates van Gogh's rapid rise to fame.
In 1918, a year after the Russian Revolution, Morosov's collection was nationalized. In 1919 he moved to Finland and died in 1921. Originally, Morosov's paintings were kept in his mansion in Moscow, which later became a public museum.
In 1948, "The Red Vineyard" was one of the works transferred to the Pushkin Museum. However, in Stalin's later years, it was not exhibited, as Stalin believed that modern French art was not suitable for communist society. After the leader's death in 1953, Van Gogh's works were exhibited again. Red Vineyard remained in Moscow and has not been loaned out for more than 60 years.
Recently, Paris was organizing a large exhibition of the Morosov Collection, a painting by Van Gogh that was too fragile to be borrowed from a long journey. The head of the Pushkin Museum admitted that it was "very sad" that the "sick" painting could not be exhibited outside. It was therefore decided to preserve and repair it.
"The Morozov Collection: An Icon of Modern Art" is now on display at the Fondation Louis Vuitton until April 3, with no "Red Vineyard" on display among the nearly 200 modern works of art on display. The exhibition has been a huge success and has attracted more than 800,000 visitors. By the end of the exhibition, the final figure could reach 1.2 million, which is a staggering number, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the issues that the Pushkin Museum must now consider is the display of The Red Vineyard, which is embedded in a gorgeous golden frame. The frame was probably acquired by Morosov in 1909. It has become part of the history of this painting and is therefore unlikely to change.
But a fancy gilded frame was not what Van Gogh wanted at all. In a letter to Theo, he gave his thoughts on the frame: "Nail simple wooden strips to the stretched frame and paint it. He drew an accompanying sketch of the frame.
On November 10, 1888, in a letter to Theo, Vincent van Gogh quickly outlined the framed red vineyards. Image source: Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam (Vincent Van Gogh Foundation)
The Red Vineyard is still in the Preservation Studio of the Pushkin Museum, but it is expected to be on display this summer in the museum's Paris exhibition "Brother Ivan: the Collection of Ivan and Mikhail Morozov" (June 27 to October 30).
Van Gogh's companion Gauguin also personally depicted the vineyards they saw while walking around Montmajour. But his description of the scene is very different. In fact, at first glance, it doesn't look like an autumn harvest.
Paul Gauguin's Human Suffering (The Wine Harvest) (November 1888). Image credit: Ordrupgaard Collection, Copenhagen
Gauguin's painting, which he originally titled Human Suffering (November 1888), focuses on a melancholy woman whose image is inspired by the distorted Peruvian mummies the artist sees in the Paris Museum. Behind her were two rows of dense vines, several stooped pickers, against a backdrop of intense yellow-ochre.
Commenting on Gauguin's technique, Van Gogh said that the sad woman in the painting comes from his friend's "head", from his imagination. "If he doesn't destroy it or leave it unfinished, it will be very beautiful and strange."
Gauguin himself considered it his "best work" of the year — though its bleak title struggled to increase the chances of sales. But like Van Gogh's paintings, it quickly found a buyer — Emile Schuffenecker, a friend of an avant-garde artist. Both Van Gogh and Gauguin's works were initially appreciated in the avant-garde art scene and found buyers.
(This article is compiled from The art newspaper)