Art Eyewitness Essay
In the Garden with Vincent van Gogh & Gustave Caillebotte
By Ed Voves
Original Photography by Anne Lloyd
Like a ship's anchor, certain works of art serve to give a "mooring" to the art museums which are their home ports. These familiar paintings or often-seen sculptures are easy to take for granted but disconcerting when placed in storage. Conversely, when works we hold in great regard are loaned to another museum for a special exhibition, then the world seems out of kilter.
There's a gap on the gallery wall where my favorite Impressionist landscape usually hangs!!! How can that be? What is to be done?
It is the contention of this essay that the best place to look, when you cannot view beloved works of art, is outside the museum walls.
That is where great artists always train their eyes and we will be spending some time here in the company of two of the greatest painters from the 1800's, Vincent van Gogh and Gustave Caillebotte.
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Self-portraits by Vincent van Gogh & Gustave Caillebotte
Focus your attention on the realm of nature, as Van Gogh and Caillebotte did. There you will never lack for the inspiration which they discovered in abundance.
Anne
Lloyd, Photo (2024)
Black-eyed Susans (rudbeckia) cultivated at the W.B. Saul High School
of Agricultural Sciences farm in Philadelphia
In recent days, we have been spending some "quality time" with nature, here at Art Eyewitness. One of the signature paintings at our local museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA), has indeed "weighed anchor" and departed for foreign shores.
Anne Lloyd, (Photo 2022)
Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers, 1889
Philadelphia Museum of Art collection
Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers (1889) is currently on loan to the National Gallery in London which has its own version of this iconic image. The pairing of the Sunflowers paintings provides the centerpiece for a "once-a-lifetime" exhibition. The curators at the National Gallery are presenting over fifty works of art by the legendary Dutch painter who worked in virtual obscurity during his lifetime, 1853-1890.
Vincent van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1888
National Gallery, London, collection
The National Gallery purchased their Sunflowers in 1924 directly from Jo Bonger van Gogh, the artist's sister-in-law and the guardian of his estate and reputation. The National Gallery paid £1304 for Sunflowers, a substantial sum back in the 1920''s.
Philadelphia's Sunflowers was bought in 1935 by Carroll S.Tyson, a cousin of John Singer Sargent and a notable landscape painter and expert in avian art. After Tyson died in 1956, Sunflowers was bequeathed to the PMA and has been a crowd-pleaser ever since. Now it is appearing in a starring role in a major National Gallery exhibition, Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers. This marks the first time that these two Sunflowers have been together since they were in Van Gogh's studio at the Yellow House in Arles in 1889.
What's the big occasion? The two hundred year anniversary of the founding of the National Gallery, for starters, and the centennial celebration of the purchase of the National Gallery's version of Van Gogh's Sunflowers.
The two Sunflowers appear along with another major painting by Van Gogh from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, La Berceuse (1889). The two Sunflowers flank the portrait of Augustine Roulin, who is shown rocking the cradle of her infant daughter.
Sunflowers for Van Gogh had a symbolical connotation - like cypress trees - as will be discussed below. He contemplated displaying the three paintings in a triptych-like manner to honor Madame Roulin as a symbol of the sacred state of motherhood. Sadly, Van Gogh was never to realize his conception.
Anne
Lloyd, Photo (2020)
Gallery view of the Resnick Rotunda at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Placing pictures of sunflowers next to a likeness of Madame Roulin is not as unorthodox as it might seem. The Philadelphia version of Sunflowers customarily hangs next to another portrait of Augustine Roulin (shown in the gallery view, above) in the Resnick Rotunda of the PMA. In this portrait, painted in late 1888, Madame Roulin is shown holding her baby, Marcelle.
Anne Lloyd, (Photo 2024)
Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of Madam Augustine Roulin
and Baby Marcelle (detail), 1888
Madame Roulin is said to have been uneasy while being painted by Van Gogh. The Dutch artist held the Roulin family in the highest esteem and affection, but Madame Roulin does appear apprehensive and "out of sorts" in this portrait. Whatever Madame Roulin's frame of mind, it is a rare moment in the Resnick Rotunda when visitors are gazing at her or other nearby works by Van Gogh rather than at Sunflowers.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2021)
Van Gogh paintings at the Resnick Rotunda, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia's Sunflowers will continue to enjoy its role as a center piece of the National Gallery celebrations until mid-January 2025. In the meantime, Madame Augustine Roulin and Baby Marcelle can enjoy some well-deserved appreciation without the attention-grabbing Sunflowers stealing the scene.
Fans of Van Gogh's Sunflowers in the Philadelphia area can look to nature for compensation, at least for the next few weeks. One place in particular stands-out as an idyllic garden-spot, a haven -indeed a heaven - of sunflower splendor: the W.B. Saul High School of Agricultural Sciences.
Saul High School is located within the city limits of Philadelphia, with a modern educational campus on one side of a major highway, Henry Ave. On the other side is a facility which looks the set of the old TV show, Green Acres. But it is an honest-to-goodness working farm, with cows, sheep, horses, crops of all kinds, bee hives and cultivated flowers, especially sunflowers.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)
A view of the W.B. Saul High School of Agricultural Sciences farm
The setting of the Saul agricultural school is enhanced by its proximity to the Wissahickon Valley Park, a woodland environment over two thousand acres in size, seven miles in length. This makes a visit to the Saul school seem like a journey to Montana's "big sky" country.
The kind of serenity and "oneness" to nature which one encounters at the Saul school is much the same as Van Gogh sought in the vicinity of Arles.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)
Sunflowers & Black-eyed Susans at the Saul Agricultural School farm
Painting sunflowers was a key element in Van Gogh's attempt to create a "school of the south" in Provence. To quote the commentary from the PMA web page devoted to their version of Sunflowers::
Throughout his ten-year career, Van Gogh painted sunflowers
repeatedly in different arrangements and settings. The shapes, colors, and
cheerfulness of the modest flower appealed to him. He associated its yellow
color with sunshine, the south, and Christ, the light of the world. Over a
single week in August 1888, Van Gogh painted four pictures of sunflowers,
including a bold canvas of twelve sunflowers against a turquoise ground, now in
the Neue Pinakothek, Munich. The speed of this work was driven by enthusiasm
and necessity since the flowers were destined to wilt and fade. This painting
is a variation on the work now in Munich. Far from being a simple copy, it is a
new interpretation that gives each flower a pronounced personality.
None of Van Gogh's Sunflowers are the least bit wilted or faded. They are as "alive" as the ones we see growing at the Saul High School farm. Every sunflower has its own "pronounced personality" as the PMA commetary notes.
That insight needs further emphasis. Each sunflower is "one-of-kind" like a snowflake, as unique as a human fingerprint.
Anne Lloyd, Photos (2023 & 2019)
A sunflower at the Saul Agricultural School farm (above)
and a detail of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Sunflowers
Whether waving its diadem of golden ray florets in the breeze at the Saul farm or filling the picture plane of a Van Gogh canvas, each sunflower is a testament to the life force which animates the Universe.
Anne Lloyd, Photos (2021)
Sunflower "weather" at the Saul Agricultural School farm
Anne and I make a point of going to the Saul High School farm during the late summer and early autumn, when the the sunflowers there are at their peak. This year, with the PMA's Sunflowers enjoying the London "season", we had added reason to make the Saul sunflowers the focus of our visit.
Anne Lloyd, Photos (2024))
Sunflowers at the Saul Agricultural School farm
We were not disappointed. The weather was fantastic. The sun could not have been brighter in the south of France and the Saul sunflowers were arching upwards like Jacob's Ladder.
It was the kind of September day, spent painting in the fields and gardens of Provence when Van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo, “Everywhere and all over the vault of heaven is a marvelous blue, and a sun sheds a radiance of pure sulphur, and it is soft and as lovely as the combination of heavenly blues and yellows in a Van der Meer of Delft…"
Nature has a way of reminding us that its abundance needs to be acknowledged along with our agendas and intentions. We journeyed to the Saul High School farm to bask in the beauty of sunflowers. But the farm's dahlias nudged our elbows and commanded our attention.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)
Cultivating dahlias at the Saul Agricultural School farm
Dahlias, unlike sunflowers, did not figure prominently in Van Gogh's oeuvre. But another artist of his era has left us a magnificent landscape dedicated to this beautiful flower. Moreover, the setting of Gustave Caillebotte's Dahlias, Garden at Petit Gennevilliars (1893) beautifully complements that of the Saul High School farm.
Gustave Caillebotte, Dahlias, Garden at Petit Gennevilliers, 1893
Caillebotte's Dahlias is a very significant painting on several counts. It is one of a select number of works by this brilliant, unconventional artist in U.S. collections. This wonderful painting recently entered the collection of the National Gallery in Washington D.C. Moreover, it was among the last of Caillebotte's paintings.
Gustave Caillebotte's career cannot be recapped here. That is best served by recalling the great 2015 exhibition at the National Gallery. For the present, it is important to note that Caillebotte (1848-1894) like Van Gogh, died tragically young, aged 46. He was stricken by pulmonary congestion as he worked in his own garden, at his country estate of Petit Gennevilliers.
Caillebotte was a man of many interests, horticultural being a particular passion. Although the cultivation of rare orchids absorbed much of his time and expertise, dahlias were another favorite and he painted several landscapes featuring this beautiful flower.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)
Just a few of the varieties of dahlias at the Saul Agricultural School
In a way, dahlias were a perfect match to Caillebotte's personality with his love of hands-on experimentation. A perennial flower, native to Mexico and Central America, dahlias are unusual plants by European standards. Dahlias are rich in sugar content and, therefore, edible. When the Spanish introduced the dahlia to Europe, they became a favorite of botanists who bred new petal shapes and colors.
In 1872, a shipment of rare, multi-colored dahlias with pointed leaves was sent from Mexico to Holland. Only one dahlia tuber survived the voyage. From this sole survivor, a "red yellow" dahlia craze swept Europe. It was just the kind of a competitive, creative phenomenon that appealed to Caillebotte, cultivating flowers in his green house and garden plots.
There was another aspect to Caillebotte's personality. His family was wealthy, but many family members, including his beloved brother, Rene, died young. Caillebotte had a strong sense of his own mortality. The unsettling aspects of some of his paintings - severed heads of calves, rows of dead chickens and rabbits hanging in butcher-shop windows - undoubtedly testify to his awareness of death.
Caillebotte was conscious of his impending demise but this acted as a spark to his embrace of life.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024)
Butterflies and dahlias at the Saul Agricultural School farm
Any melancholy thoughts on our part were soon dispelled, as we basked in the glorious sunlight amid the flowers at the Saul High School farm. As if on cue, the butterflies and honey bees showed-up. They almost always do when we visit Saul.
The sight of butterflies darting amid the rows of brightly-hued zinnias and rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susans), dahlia and sunflowers, is one of the most life-affirming sights I know. The bees go about their business with quiet, purposeful dedication. Nature's industry is marvelous to behold.
Van Gogh was truly perceptive to regard sunflowers as symbolical of the life force of nature. Caillebotte painted several depictions of this magnificent plant, as well. Here is a sequence of like-minded photos which Anne took of the sunflowers at the Saul farm in 2023.
Sunflower splendor at the Saul Agricultural School Farm
These are troubled times in which we find ourselves. So was the era in which Van Gogh and Caillebotte lived. Amidst their woes, with the shadow of death creeping closer, they glimpsed the beauty of nature and recorded it in oil on canvas.
If we keep looking, we will find beauty too... even if our favorite painting is on loan to a museum in a foreign land.
The sunflowers and dahlias will bloom. The bees and the butterflies will appear.
***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights
reserved
Original photography, copyright of Anne
Lloyd
Introductory image: Anne
Lloyd, (Photo 2024) A photo of a dahlia flower and a butterfly at butterfly the W.B. Saul High School of Agricultural Sciences farm in Philadelphia.
Composite illustration of self-portraits by Vincent van Gogh and Gustave Caillebotte. Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1887-1888, Oil on canvas: 65.1 × 50 cm) Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Gustave Caillebotte, Self-Portrait, 1888-1889, Oil on canvas: 55 × 46 cm (21 5/8 × 18 1/8 in.) Private Collection.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2024) Black-eyed Susans (rudbeckia) cultivated at the W.B. Saul High School of Agricultural Sciences farm in Philadelphia.
Anne Lloyd, (Photo 2022) Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers, 1889. Oil on canvas: 36 3/8 x 28 in. (92.4. x 71.1 cm.) Philadelphia Museum of Art #1963-116-19
Anne Lloyd, (Photo 2020) Gallery
view of Resnick Rotunda at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Anne Lloyd, (Photo 2024) Vincent van
Gogh's Portrait of Madam Augustine Roulin and Baby Marcelle (Detail),
1888. Oil on canvas: 36 3/8 x 28 15/16 in. (92.4. x 73.5 cm) Philadelphia
Museum of Art #1950-92-22
Anne Lloyd, (Photo 2021) Van Gogh paintings at the Resnick Rotunda, Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Gustave Caillebotte (French, 1848-1894) Dahlias, Garden at Petit Gennevilliers, 1893. Oil on canvas: 61 13/16 x 44 7/8 in. (157 x 114 cm.) National Gallery of Art #216.48.1
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2018-2024) The selection of photographs of sunflowers and dahlias, illustrating this essay, were taken during visits to the W.B. Saul High School of Agricultural Sciences farm in Philadelphia during the years 2018-2024.
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