THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 2, 1996 TAG: 9607020070
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 86 lines
ONE OF Vincent van Gogh's first paintings made in the south of France was propped last week on a push cart in a Norfolk museum.
The Post-Impressionist's 1888 canvas ``Orchard With Peach Blossom'' sat in a behind-the-scenes workshop, awaiting installation on its own special wall in the skylit Impressionists gallery at the Chrysler Museum of Art.
``Orchard With Peach Blossom,'' an oil painting measuring about 25 by 31 inches, goes on view today.
Silver-haired, dark-suited Jeff Harrison, the museum's chief curator, leaned toward the work, his face inches from the protective glass pane.
``Look at this surface. This is in absolutely pristine condition,'' Harrison said, pointing excitedly to the many tiny swirls and peaks of impasto, or thick paint, that described the spring flowers.
``It is absolutely just like it was when he last touched it. Look at those peaks. If you shined a light on it from the side, you would see it's like a miniature mountain range. You can see every move of the artist's hand.''
This is, he stressed, ``a gorgeous picture.''
Anyone else experiencing deja vu? Late last summer, the museum pulled off a minor blockbuster by exhibiting a single ``Waterlilies'' painting by Impressionist Claude Monet. As with the van Gogh, the owner was kept anonymous; in each case the expenses were paid by the Masterpiece Society, a membership group at the museum consisting of donors who give $2,500 or more to the museum.
For the Monet event, the Chrysler created a poster, a T-shirt and a major ad campaign that won an international award for Barker, Campbell & Farley, the Virginia Beach agency that devised it. The campaign featured frogs gazing with deep admiration at a canvas on an easel.
Likewise, admiring patrons queued up to see Monet's art. Last August, Harrison said, ``we doubled our numbers'' compared to August attendance figures in previous years.
``We hoped that would happen. And we were very grateful,'' Harrison said. ``I think the van Gogh will have the same effect.''
Barker, Campbell & Farley's campaign for the van Gogh features a painter's palette in the shape of an ear, along with the caption: ``Know him for his art. Not just his ear.''
The image, of course, refers to van Gogh's famous ear-lopping incident. In December 1888, about eight months after he painted the Chrysler canvas, van Gogh had his first mental breakdown. The collapse was precipitated somewhat by his constant arguments with the painter Paul Gauguin, who had moved in with him two months earlier.
His brother Theo van Gogh, a Paris art dealer, had arranged the shared accommodations and was paying their rent. The two art titans admired each other's work, and became influenced by each other, even as they fought passionately over their differing views on art.
The arguments were ``electric,'' van Gogh wrote, ``sometimes we come out of them with our heads as exhausted as a used electric battery.''
While in a rage, van Gogh cut off part of his left ear. Then he delivered his wrapped lobe to a harlot he knew in Arles, wrote biographer David Sweetman. Theories abound as to why he cut his ear, but no one knows for sure.
The 15-month period when Van Gogh was in Arles, beginning in March 1888, was a peak in his career. Within a month of his arrival, he was hard at work painting fruit orchards.
``Orchard With Peach Blossom,'' painted in April, is part of an intended trio of paintings. The centerpiece no longer exists, but the other painting is in the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, southeast of Amsterdam in The Netherlands.
Van Gogh went to Arles from Paris, where he had been profoundly affected by the work of the Impressionists, who worked outdoors, and by the Pointillists, who experimented with new color theories.
``Paris liberated his brushwork and his palette. And so he went to Arles looking for a landscape that would inspire him,'' Harrison said.
These were the halcyon days for van Gogh, who committed suicide two years later, at age 37. ``He is, in many ways, one of the great models of the modern artist,'' Harrison said. ``Working in heroic isolation, he created a very personal and powerful vision of the world.'' ILLUSTRATION: VAN GOGH AT THE CHRYSLER
"Orchard with Peach Blossom"
WANT TO SEE IT?
What: Vincent van Gogh's 1888 ``Orchard With Peach Blossom''
Where: The Chrysler Museum of Art, 245 W. Olney Road, Norfolk
When: Today through Sept. 1
Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m.
Sunday
How much: Museum admission is $4 adults, $2 for students and ages
60 and older. Ages 5 and younger, free.
Call: 664-6200 by CNB