|
||||
Is that who I think it is? I recognize the landscape, the three roads, one of them disappearing into the blue horizon, the black birds hovering ominously. Yes, this is the scene of Vincent Van Gogh’s Crows Over a Wheatfield, one of the last works the artist painted before his suicide in the quaint French town of Auvers-sur-Oise. Didn’t I once read that the stark masterpiece reflected Van Gogh’s anguish in his final days, the crows representing winged harbingers of death? This is definitely the same setting. But who is that giant figure dominating the background, rising godlike in the gloaming? With that intense stare, red beard, and bandaged ear, it can only be Van Gogh himself. But this is the tormented genius as we’ve never seen him before: grinning, leering, his toothy smile at once mocking and triumphant. . . .
- Jake Lamar, formerly associate editor Text excerpted from A Capital Collection: Masterworks from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, which is available for purchase in the Corcoran Shop. :: Click here to purchase this catalog online
|
Copyright © 2008, Corcoran Gallery of Art |