Sunset at Montmajour

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Sunset at Montmajour (Vincent van Gogh)
Sunset at Montmajour
Vincent van Gogh , 1888
Oil on canvas
73.3 x 93.3 cm
Private collection

Sunset at Montmajour is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh . The work was created in the summer of 1888 during van Gogh's stay in Arles in 1888/89. It shows the typical garigue landscape of the area, in the distance you can see the ruins of the Montmajour Abbey .

classification

The picture represents a transitional work to the mature style of the artist, who here experimentally applies his later features that are now typical for him, such as the heavily pastose and multi-layered application of paint. The painter himself considered the picture to have failed during his lifetime.

history

The sunset scene was mentioned in two letters from van Gogh to his brother Theo van Gogh in the summer of 1888. This is how van Gogh describes the sight "on a stony heather where very small, crooked oaks grew, in the background a ruin on the hill and wheat in the valley". It is closely related to the rock mound with oak from July 1888 ( F 466 / JH 1489) and a series of ink drawings.

Theo had already inventoried the picture in 1890 (inventory number 180) and sold it by his widow in 1901 . In 1908 it was bought by the Norwegian entrepreneur Christian Nicolai Mustad ( O. Mustad & Søn ). At that time, doubts about its authenticity were already emerging. The painting remained in the family's possession and was temporarily kept in an attic. Experts from the Van Gogh Museum toured it in the 1990s but did not consider it authentic. Only years later was the picture subjected to a two-year extensive examination; its authenticity was confirmed in September 2013. So is sunset the first "rediscovered" work of van Gogh since the release of Jacob Baart de la Failles catalog raisonné in 1928. In the fall of 2013, the paintings in the exhibition was Van Gogh aan het werk at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam for the first time presented to the public.

Individual evidence

  1. To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Thursday 5 July 1888. Retrieved September 12, 2013 (English, French).

Web links

Commons : Sunset at Montmajour  - Collection of images, videos and audio files