Van Gogh and the Avant Garde: The Modern Landscape

Vincent van Goth, Factories at Clichy, 1887, Saint Louis Art Museum. Funds given by Mrs Mark C. Steinberg by exchange, 579:1958

Between 1882 and 1890, five artists—Vincent van Gogh, along with Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Emile Bernard, and Charles Angrand—flocked to villages on the fringes of Paris. Unlike the earlier Impressionists, who in the previous decade had spent significant time in suburban locations further from the city, this next generation of ambitious artists preferred the northwestern suburbs around Asnières. The area’s visual vocabulary—its bridges, embankments, factories, parks, and villages—along with its sunlight, water, and brilliant natural color prompted intense experimentation. Each artist explored the use of discrete brushstrokes and strong colors in innovative ways, and in turn developed novel styles of painting. Seurat and Signac began applying contrasting colors in unblended strokes (Divisionism). They then pioneered the use of small dots of complementary colors (Pointillism) to achieve an optical mixture in the viewer’s eye. Bernard, having reached the limits of these two styles, experimented with laying out large swathes of bold color defined by dark contours (Cloisonnism) in the last years of the decade. Van Gogh and Angrand followed the developments of Seurat and Signac, absorbing many of these approaches into their later painting styles.

More than 75 paintings and drawings from this intensely creative period—many from private collections and rarely publicly displayed—come together for this insightful presentation. Among them are 25 works by Van Gogh, including paintings from all three triptychs that he executed in these suburbs. Uniting these outstanding works in this exhibition not only sheds new light on the boundary-pushing techniques Van Gogh and his fellow painters developed during this time, but it also illuminates the power of place to inspire—to encourage pioneering work, launch career-changing ideas, and shape artistic identities.