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Visiting Van Gogh Series
In 1888, while in Arles, Vincent van
Gogh dreamed about forming a community of avant-garde artists; he longed for it so much
that he rented four rooms in the Yellow House. The
bright sunshine and beautiful landscape around Arles served as the perfect environment for
him to settle down and consciousness of hi solitude and his intense longing for brotherly
fellowship drove Vincent to try to set up a "Studio of the Midi," an artists'
club where artists could share their experience, hold exhibitions together, sell artwork
if possible, and just live and work together in a familial spirit.
Van Gogh became acquainted with some
artists in Pont-Aven, and kept contact with some avant-grade artists in Paris. While in Paris, Vincent was able to organize an
exhibition at "Le Chalet" restaurant. Then
together with Bernard, Toulouse-Lautrec, Anquetin, and Gauguin, he succeeded in putting
together an exhibition at "Le Tambourin," where they called themselves the
"Little Boulevard Group."
However, as history shows us,
Vincent's dream was never truly realized; the main obstacle was lack of financial
resources. The only money that Vincent had
came from his brother Theo, an art gallery manager in Montmartre who dared to show
Impressionists beside Corot. Bout on matter
how compassionate and generous Theo was, his modest salary could not support the elaborate
dreams of his elder brother. Theo did manage
to pursuade and provide for Gauguin, an artist whom Vincent deeply admired, to join the
dreamer in Arles. Tragically, however, a
personality conflict ended the two artists' friendship and Van Gogh's dream of the
"Studio of the Midi."
It can be argued that the artistic
temperament is self-centered in its intense need fro privacy and solitude during the
creative process. In this light, Van Gogh
seems somewhat naive in his lofty ideas of forming a n artist community in his four-room
studio home. Yet his dream of setting up this
communal haven for artists merits our applause and action.
In Chen's paintings, Van Gogh's studio
becomes transformed according to the visits of different masters, including Paul Cezanne,
Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Joan Miro, Georges Rouault,
Pierre Bonnard, Amadeo Modigliani, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Piet Mondrain, etc.
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