From the colour-bursting brilliance of The Starry Night to the raw beauty of the Sunflowers and the sublime work that is The Potato Eaters, Vincent van Gogh has been one of the most influential—not to mention, the most-discussed—painters who made a definitive impact on the art world. His bold strokes and robust colour palette, though, hid a fragile mind plagued by insecurities and depression.
The celebrated Dutch artist, who equals the fame of the 17th century Golden Age painter Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, was active during the late 19th century. But stories of his troubled mind have often overshadowed his art. What would it be like to walk through the artist’s famous canvas, Wheatfield with Crows, or admire the view while idling at the Café Terrace at Night? Now art enthusiasts can make an attempt to do so.
Van Gogh 360o, an immersive experience showcasing as many as 300 works of the artist, will be on display at the World Trade Centre, Mumbai, from January 20 next year. The 45-minute event, which will be open to the public till February 17, 2023, has so far travelled across North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and garnered wide acclaim. The multi-media event is also likely to travel to Bengaluru and Delhi.
Harssh Shah, the founder of the Ahmedabad-based Iram Art Gallery, who watched the digital extravaganza in Paris, says, “I was awestruck. I’m happy the show is travelling to India, as van Gogh has a special place among Indian art collectors, especially due to his dramatic brush strokes which expressed emotion and added a sense of movement to his works.”
The Van Gogh 360o also made its pop-culture debut in Netflix’s Emily in Paris, where the leads of the show visit the immersive van Gogh exhibit at L’Atelier des Lumières.
The ever-changing and fast-moving visuals in the digital exhibition with its form-bending imagery—mastered using as many as 12,000 individual slides—act as the perfect portrayal of Emily Cooper’s (the protagonist of the series, who is trying to find her place in an increasingly complicated love triangle) inner turmoil.
Maybe the makers of the OTT show wanted to channel the mythical story of van Gogh’s unrequited love. The artist allegedly cut off his ear after a heartbreak and sent the organ to the woman who spurned him.
According to some researchers, however, van Gogh was plagued with insecurity when his older brother Theo decided to marry. He believed the marriage would be an impediment to his receiving financial support from his brother. In desperation, he sliced his ear and left it lying in front of a brothel.
While some other theorists claim that the accident happened when he attacked fellow artist Paul Gauguin—who was residing with him at the famed Yellow House in Arles, France—over a heated argument. Such stories only make the artist a favourite in the art world and beyond.
In fact, the first van Gogh immersive experience was mounted as early as in 2008. Director Somak Mitra, of the Kolkata-based Gallery Art Exposure, says, “This is a landmark exhibit featuring the works of one of the most influential artists in the history of the Western world.”
Starting his practice during the age of the Impressionists, van Gogh’s creativity could not be contained within its boundaries. His art shone with the brilliance of his mind, and though his career was short-lived—he painted for only a decade before taking his life at the age of 37—it blazed through the art world establishing the Post-Impressionist era.
The artist’s extraordinary life can be surmised in his 1889 seminal work, The Starry Night, as also the oft-overlooked masterpiece, Irises. Painted towards the end of his career in an asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in Southern France, these paintings throb with life and vigour belying the traumatic psychological state of the artist, who died a year later in 1890.
Delhi-based artist Pratul Dash rues that such immersive experiences are not conceptualised in India.
“All art practitioners should make a beeline for the show. Also, in the future, I would love to have the works of Italian painter Michelangelo Pistoletto and English artist Damien Hirst being showcased in India in future.”
Van Gogh influenced a whole generation of artists from Gauguin and Henry de Toulouse-Lautrec to Edvard Munch and Gustav Klimt. Delhi artist Kanchan Chander hopes that the symbolist art of Klimt also gets a similar show, while Shah is rooting for a Pablo Picasso immersive experience.
On Mitra’s wishlist is bringing the show, Francis Bacon: Man and Beast, which was previously on display at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, to India next.
“Another deeply significant artist from the 20th century, Bacon’s unique style of portraiture sparked a movement of its own. This exhibition,
in particular, took a fascinating approach to exploring the human condition—through the form of animals and animalistic impulses—which I will be most excited to view firsthand in India,” he says.