Amedeo Modigliani in Worldwide Museums: 15. Detroit Institute of Arts

 

How are you?

The 15th place I would like to introduce for this week is Detroit Institute of Arts.

Founded in 1885, the Detroit Institute of Arts was originally located on Jefferson Avenue, but moved to its current location on Woodward Avenue in 1927 as its collection rapidly expanded. The Beaux-Arts building, designed by Paul Philippe Cret, was immediately called the “temple of art.” Two wings were added in the 1960s and 1970s, and a major renovation and expansion work began in 1999 and was completed in 2007.

The museum has over 658,000 square feet, including more than 100 galleries, a 1,150-seat auditorium, a 380-seat lecture/recital hall, an art reference library, and a state-of-the-art art conservation lab.

With more than 65,000 works, the Detroit Institute of Arts is among the top six in the United States by its collection size. William Valentiner, director from 1924 to 1945, acquired many important works that framed the present collection. Among his notable acquisitions are Mexican artist Diego Rivera's “Detroit Industry” fresco mural, which Rivera regarded as his most successful work, and Vincent van Gogh’s “Self-Portrait”, the first Van Gogh painting to enter a U. S. Museum collection.

A hallmark of the Detroit Institute of Arts is the diversity of its collection. In addition to outstanding American, European, Modern and Contemporary, and Graphic art, the museum holds important works of African, Asian, Native American, Oceanian, Islamic and Ancient art.

The works of Modigliani currently in the possession of the Detroit Institute of Arts are as follows.

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Announcement for Lecture Schedule in June 2022

How are you?

After experiencing great difficulties in offline lectures for a long time due to the COVID19 crisis, I start offline lectures again from June 2022.

First of all, I would like to inform you of my lecture schedule for June 2022, which is next month, and I will again inform you of my lecture schedule for July 2022 in next month.

In the next month, June 2022, a total of 4 lectures hosted by the Gangnam branch, Shinsegae Academy are being prepared. The title of my lecture is “The Great and Immortal Painters’ Stories.”

This lecture has been popular at various institutions such as Mapo Lifelong Learning Center and Seongdong-gu Library, and you can also find the content in my books.

Please refer to following details of my lecture for next month at Gangnam Branch, Shinsegae Academy.

1. Lecture Title: The Great and Immortal Painters’ Stories

2. Lecture content

1) Introduction of the selected artist’s life and interesting stories

2) Introduction of a film featuring the selected artist

3) Select the music that matches with the selected artist's life and work as background music for slideshow of the appreciation of the artist's works

3. Venue: Gangnam Branch, Shinsegae Academy

4. Instructor Name: Seungyong Chang

5. Course Period: 2022.06.03~2022.06.24 (total 4 lectures)

6. Day/Time: Fri 10:40~12:00

7. Target audience: Adults

8. Lecture room: Classroom F (community)

9. Application period: 2022.04.26 ~ 2022.06.02

10. Details

Round          Date                     Contents

1                    2022.06.03         Amedeo Modigliani

2                    2022.06.10         Claude Monet

3                    2022.06.17          Vincent Van Gogh

4                   2022.06.24          Gustav Klimt

Thank you for your interest and I hope to see you at the lecture.

Thank you.

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Interesting Art Stories: 63. The Potato Eaters, Vincent van Gogh, ACJ Art Academy

 

 

How are you?

Currently, I am introducing the stories about various artists and their paintings with the title “Interesting Art Stories”.

The 63rd story is “The Potato Eaters” by Vincent van Gogh.

"The Potato Eaters" is an oil painting by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh in 1885.

Self-Portrait, Vincent van Gogh (1889)

During March and early April 1885, van Gogh sketched studies for the painting, and corresponded with his younger brother Theo. He finished most of the work on the painting from 13 April to early May, although he made minor changes at the end of the same year.

Van Gogh, who was trying to represent peasants as they really were in the painting, deliberately chose coarse and ugly models to portray the peasants in a natural and unspoiled way.

Shortly after painting it, his friend Anthon van Rappard criticized the painting, and the incident was a blow to Van Gogh's confidence as an emerging artist. However, in a letter to his sister Willemina in Paris two years after the painting, he still considered it as his most successful painting.

Anthon van Rappard

Wilhemina Van Gogh

Van Gogh is known to have admired the Belgian painter Charles de Groux, and especially his painting “The blessing before supper”. De Groux' work depicts a peasant family praying for God's grace before supper, closely linked to Christian representations of the Last Supper. 

The Blessing before supper, Charles de Groux (1861)

Van Gogh's "The Potato Eaters" was inspired by this painting of de Groux, and several versions of "The Potato Eaters" are as follows.

Study for The Potato Eaters

Study for The Potato Eaters, Private collection (1885)

Second Study for The Potato Eaters, Kröller-Müller Museum,
 Otterlo (1885)

Van Gogh made a lithograph of the painting before embarking on the painting proper, and in a letter to his friend, he wrote that he made the lithograph from memory in a day.

The Potato Eaters, Lithography, Vincent van Gogh,
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (April 1885)

Van Gogh is known by many as a Post-Impressionist, but his actual artistic roots are much closer to artists of the Hague School such as Anton Mauve and Jozef Israëls.

Before van Gogh painted "The Potato Eaters," Israëls had already treated the same subject in his "A Peasant Family at the Table," and when referring to a letter to Theo on March 11, 1882, van Gogh, who saw this painting, seems that he was inspired to draw his own version of the painting.

A Peasant family at the table, Jozef Israëls (1882)

The painting is now in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and considered one of Van Gogh's masterpieces. The original oil sketch for the painting is in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands, and lithographs of the image are in collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Van Gogh Museum

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The Stories about Art Films: 44. Loving Vincent (2017), ACJ Movie Academy

 

Basic Info

Title: Loving Vincent

Genre: Animation, Biography

Country: Poland, United Kingdom

Language: English

Running time: 95 minutes

Release date: 12 June 2017 (Annecy), 22 September 2017 (United States), 6 October 2017 (Poland), 13 October 2017 (United Kingdom)

Staff

Director: Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman

Produced by: Hugh Welchman, Ivan Mactaggart, Sean M. Bobbitt

Screenplay: Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman, Jacek Dehnel

Music: Clint Mansell

Cinematography: Tristan Oliver, Łukasz Żal

Edited by: Dorota Kobiela, Justyna Wierszynska

Cast

Robert Gulaczyk as Vincent van Gogh

Douglas Booth as Armand Roulin

Jerome Flynn as Paul Gachet

Saoirse Ronan as Marguerite Gachet

Helen McCrory as Louise Chevalier

Chris O'Dowd as Postman Joseph Roulin

John Sessions as Père Tanguy

Eleanor Tomlinson as Adeline Ravoux

Summary

"Loving Vincent" is a 2017 experimental animated biographical drama film about the life of the painter Vincent van Gogh, and, particularly, about the circumstances surrounding his death. 

Self-Portrait, Vincent van Gogh (1889)

It is also the first fully painted animated feature film. Written and directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, the film was co-produced by Poland and UK, with funding by the Polish Film Institute and partly through a Kickstarter campaign.

First conceived as a seven-minute short film in 2008, the film came to be realized by Dorota Kobiela, a painter herself, after studying the techniques and the story of Van Gogh through his letters.

Dorota Kobiela

Each of the film's 65,000 frames is an oil painting on canvas, created using the same techniques as Van Gogh by a team of 125 artists from around the world. The film premiered at the 2017 Annecy International Animated Film Festival.

Annecy International Animation Film Festival

It also won the Best Animated Feature Film Award at the 30th European Film Awards in Berlin, and was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 90th Academy Awards.

The Starry Night, Vincent van Gogh (1889)

Movie Review

“Van Gogh's art comes alive”

“Amazing work of art, telling a melancholic tale”

“Beautiful”

“A work of art, a masterpiece”

“A Visual Feast!”

“Real Cinematic Art”

“One of the most visually-striking films ever made”

“Absolutely mesmerizing”

“Story of an unfortunate man”

“Visualized Sentiment”

“A Masterpiece Of Moving Art”

Interesting stories about the film

1. It took a team of over 100 professional artists to hand-paint every frame of this film.

The Night Café, Vincent van Gogh (1888)

2. This film was animated with rotoscope. After shooting in live action with real actors and actresses, each frame was painted and animated.

Patent drawing for Max Fleischer's original rotoscope

3. The concept of artistically painted animation was described in Arthur C. Clarke's novel "Childhood's End" in 1953.

Cover of first edition, Childhood's End,
Arthur C Clarke (1953)

4. Only the "present day" sequences are animated in Vincent's painting style, and flashbacks were animated from black-and-white photographs of the period.

Wheatfield with Crows, Vincent van Gogh (1890)

Thank you.

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