VAN GOGH: FIELDS - The Field with Poppies and the Artists` Dispute

VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890)

In this first major publication paying tribute to the subject of landscape in the works of Vincent van Gogh, more than 50 paintings and drawings by the Dutch artist will be represented - taking van Gogh's Field with Poppies from the collection of the Kunsthalle Bremen as a starting point. This picture was one of the first van Gogh painted in 1889 in the surrounding countryside of the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where he let himself be voluntarily treated.
Fields are the artist's leitmotif, a motif, which runs like a thread through his work. The paintings in the volume illustrate the extent to which van Gogh's mind was rooted in the cycles of nature: from the mythical sower to the flowering corn to the autumnal reaper. Above all they show the artistic possibilities of his conception of landscape: from the perspective effect of depth to the accentuation of the canvas surface.
Field with Poppies was acquired by the Bremen Kunsthalle in 1911. The purchase prompted the protest of German artists against the arrival of French Modernism in German museums. However, the Bremen curator Gustav Pauli, supported by well-known artists such as Max Liebermann and Wassily Kandinsky, defended the purchase. The argument, which aroused the whole of Germany at that time, will be clearly documented by the publication.