Unsung Van Goghs in the Netherlands

Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait with Pipe and Straw Hat, 1887, Van Gogh Museum

Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1887, Van Gogh Museum

Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1887, Van Gogh Museum, to show security lock on back/By Patricia Leslie

At the Van Gogh Museum, June 24, 2024/By Patricia Leslie

Vincent van Gogh, Cottage, 1885, Van Gogh Museum.  The label says Van Gogh  loved these homes, comfortable places which made their occupants feel safe and secure.  Two families lived here, made evident by the two front doors.  Vincent "deliberately set the scene at dusk, the time when the peasants have returned home after a hard day's work."

Vincent van Gogh, Head of a Woman, 1885, Van Gogh Museum. The label says the artist set out to paint a series of 50 "'heads' ....to represent the peasants...who had been tilling the land for centuries. 'They remind one of the earth, sometimes appear to have been modelled [sic] out of it,'" he wrote.

Vincent van Gogh, Montmartre: Behind the Moulin de la Galette, 1887, Van Gogh Museum

Vincent van Gogh, Montmartre:  WIndmills and Allotments, 1887, Van Gogh Museum.  The label says he "derived the fresh, pure colours...from contemporary French art."

At the Van Gogh Museum, June 24, 2024, looking at ...one of his!/By Patricia Leslie

Vincent van Gogh, Three Novels, 1887, Van Gogh Museum. The label says Vincent "attached so much importance to contemporary literature that he painted no fewer than four still lifes of modern French novels....The oval format...is due to its unusual support, namely the lid of a little Japanese box."

Vincent van Gogh, Garden with Courting Couples:  Square Saint- Pierre, 1887, Van Gogh Museum. The label says he called this park "'the painting of the garden with lovers.'...Van Gogh took liberties with the Pointillist technique....[and] succeeded in rendering the effects of a dazzling spring day....He too longed for a wife and a family, but he had 'the most impossible love stories.'  He ultimately resigned himself to this situation; after all, he was devoted to his art."

Paul Gauguin, Clovis Sleeping, 1884, Van Gogh Museum. New to the collection.  

The label says that this is the first Gauguin impressionist painting in the museum. Vincent and his brother, Theo, collected Gauguins and given the "close, but complex friendship, which was all about artistic exchange," between the two artists,  Gauguin's work "has always been a focal point" of the collection.

This has a sad ending...Clovis was Gauguin's "apple of his father's eye" who was five when his father painted him sleeping.  In 1885 while the rest of the family stayed in Copenhagen, the father and son moved to Paris where they lived in poverty.  Gauguin wrote that "Clovis was 'very sweet and played all alone in his little corner without tormenting me.'"

To concentrate only on his art, Gauguin left Paris for Brittany in 1886, leaving Clovis behind in a boarding house with strangers when Clovis was only 7. Gauguin did not visit his son because, for one reason, he did not have money to pay the boarding house for Clovis's expenses. 

At age 21, in 1900 Clovis died of blood poisoning.  He had not seen his father in nine years, his father having left the continent for Tahiti in 1895.  Sounds rather like I'd imagine Gauguin to be:  self-centered and another "me! me! me! me!" personality. Read more about Clovis here.

Paul Gauguin, Clovis Sleeping, 1884, Van Gogh Museum.

Vincent van Gogh, View from Theo's Apartment, 1887, Van Gogh Museum. In Paris

Vincent van Gogh, In the Cafe: Agostina Segatori in Le Tambourin, 1887, Van Gogh Museum. Okay, some works are better known than others, like this one.  Agostina owned this café which Van Gogh frequented. A woman in a café was a popular subject for artists, the label says.

Vincent van Gogh, The Harvest, 1888, Van Gogh Museum. To Van Gogh, this work left him "very satisfied" and "absolutely surpassed all his other works from this period," according to the label. Around Arles. 

Vincent van Gogh, The Zouave, 1888, Van Gogh Museum. A Zouave was a French soldier stationed in North Africa.

Vincent van Gogh, Gauguin's Chair, 1888, Van Gogh Museum. The label says this "unusual painting...can be understood as a portrait of the artist."  Not long afterwards, the two artists "would quarrel fiercely and part ways."  Van Gogh painted his own chair in blue and yellow.

Vincent van Gogh, The Hill of Montmartre with Stone Quarry, 1886, Van Gogh Museum.

Theo van Gogh's Cabinet, 1790-1800, Van Gogh Museum. This cabinet housed Vincent's brother's collection of prints and drawings, and later, Vincent's letters.  After her husband, Theo, died, Johanna "took it upon herself to order and organise (sic) all these letters so that they could be published," all of the correspondence now at the Van Gogh Museum/By Patricia Leslie

At the Potato Eaters, Van Gogh Museum/By Patricia Leslie

Vincent van Gogh, Wheatfield under Thunderclouds, 1890, Van Gogh Museum, painted around Auvers during the last weeks of his life when, the label says, he tried to "express 'sadness, and extreme loneliness.'  The landscapes' effects on him were "'healthy' and 'invigorating.'"

Vincent van Gogh, Landscape at Twilight, 1890, Van Gogh Museum

Vincent van Gogh, Tree Roots (detail), 1890, Van Gogh Museum. The morning of his death, Van Gogh worked on this, his last painting, the label says, which was left unfinished due to his suicide by firearm.  Although there is question regarding annoyances by neighborhood children and whether the artist did kill himself, the Van Gogh Museum states unequivocally that he died by suicide.

Moving on two days later to the Kröller-Müller Museum, did I say all the Van Goghs in the Netherlands were lesser-knowns?  Not the case! 

Above, the hand and arm of a guide points out A Cafe at Night, 1888 at the Kröller-Müller. The label says Van Gogh "set himself the difficult task of making a nocturnal painting without using black...one of the highlights of his oeuvre." Astronomical research confirms the accuracy of Van Gogh's sky, painted "precisely" what he saw on the night of September 16 or 17, 1888/By Patricia Leslie

Vincent van Gogh, Girl in a Wood, 1882, Kröller-Müller Museum. The label says a gift from Theo permitted Vincent to purchase paints which did not require mixing, and he also bought a "perspective frame" which could be used to set up on uneven surfaces like here.  "It is very likely that he paints it [above] on his knees...[made evident by] the low perspective, but also because pieces of leaves...have become lodged in the paint." 

Vincent van Gogh, Cyresses with Two Figures, 1890, Kröller-Müller Museum. The label describes two women, which he added later, standing in a lovely landscape, but "the work is not about [them, according to the label], but about the row of trees behind them." Van Gogh wrote Theo: "'The cypresses still preoccupy me.'"  He gave this painting to the Parisian art critic, Albert Aurier, "the first to write enthusiastically" about Van Gogh's work.

 
Vincent van Gogh, Interior of a Restaurant, 1887, Kröller-Müller Museum. The insides of cafés, bars, restaurants made good subject for impressionistic artists, including Van Gogh who did not identify this establishment.  The label notes the high-hanging hat on the wall. Van Gogh didn't care too much for city life or its inhabitants (whom he called "decadent") and six months after finishing this, he left Paris for the quieter surroundings of southern France.

Vincent van Gogh, Patch of Grass (detail), 1887, Kröller-Müller Museum. The label notes the minute refinement of each part of the painting: "In the hands of Van Gogh, a piece of nature that is usually part of a larger whole thus becomes a subject in itself." The colors here do not adequately convey the richness of the green in the painting.

Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1887, Kröller-Müller Museum. The label says Vincent wrote to Theo: "'People say [...] that it's difficult to know oneself...but it's not easy to paint oneself either.''  Between 1886 and 1888, he painted about 25 mostly small self-portraits.  Since he didn't have much money to pay models, Vincent painted himself.  

Helene Kröller-Müller, the museum's founder, paid about 6,500 francs for this at an auction in Amsterdam which biographer Frederik Muller noted in 1919 was the only Van Gogh self-portrait in the collection. (She was one of the world's first Van Gogh collectors, who bought 15 Van Goghs when she visited Paris in 1912. The value today of 6,500 francs is about $7,340.)

Vincent van Gogh, Still Live with Straw Hat, 1881, Kröller-Müller Museum, one of the artist's first paintings.

Vincent van Gogh, Still Life with Jars, 1885, Kröller-Müller Museum.

Vincent van Gogh, Peasants Planting Potatoes, 1884, Kröller-Müller Museum. This was one of six renderings Van Gogh painted on commission for the dining room of amateur artist and goldsmith, Antoon Hermans. Initially, Van Gogh planned for two figures to be included in the work, but he added more people to please the buyer.  The label says:  "Van Gogh does not really manage to combine the figures into a whole."

A Van Gogh gallery, June 26, 2024 at the Kröller-Müller Museum with more room to enjoy art than found at the Amsterdam museum!/By Patricia Leslie

Vincent van Gogh, Path in the Park, 1888, Kröller-Müller Museum

Vincent van Gogh, The Green Vineyard, 1888, Kröller-Müller Museum

Vincent van Gogh, The Green Vineyard, (detail), 1888, Kröller-Müller Museum

Vincent van Gogh, Tree Trunks with Ivy, 1889, Kröller-Müller Museum

Vincent van Gogh, Tree Trunks with Ivy, (detail) 1889, Kröller-Müller Museum

Vincent van Gogh,View of Saintes-Marles-de-la- Mer, 1888, Kröller-Müller Museum.  In a stay of just a few days, Van Gogh completed nine drawings and a painting of the village on the Mediterranean, commenting how the sky and the sea changed colors.

Vincent van Gogh, Girl Peasant Women Digging Up Potatoes, 1885, Kröller-Müller Museum

The front of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, June 24, 2024/By Patricia Leslie

The rear and exit at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, June 24, 2024/By Patricia Leslie

Lunch at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, June 24, 2024. Not the greatest but okay, I guess, for museum food. (Eat before or after you go.) The utensils were compostable. Yay! The prices were high/By Patricia Leslie

In the Netherlands they pronounce his name "Van Hoff," his popularity, never ceasing. 

The National Gallery in London has just announced its major fall exhibition, the  "once-in-a-century" Van Gogh show, Poets and Lovers, certain to attract thousands.

At the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, even with timed entry, the crowds surge, overflowing from the city's enormous tourist numbers. (Buy tickets online before you visit! One cringes to think what the crowds would be like without timed entry, and photos here show the crowd on a Monday. Pre-covid annual numbers of visitors to the museum were about 2.2 million of whom 85% were international guests.)

Neither the museum nor the  Kröller-Müller Museum* about an hour southeast of Amsterdam in Otterlo, have many of the famous Van Goghs of which enthusiasts are familiar, and someone in my group complained that the famous Van Goghs were few and far between in the Netherlands. 

Who cares when there was so much new to see?

Many of his self-portraits hang on the walls in both places. Artists who could not afford to pay models often settled for themselves in the mirror.

Depending upon your source, estimates about the number of Van Gogh self-portraits vary between 32 and 36.

The Kröller-Müller Museum says it has "the world's finest Vincent van Gogh collection" with the world's second largest Van Gogh collection of 90 paintings and more than 180 drawings (not all hang simultaneously) while the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam  houses the world's largest Van Gogh collection, with more than 200 paintings (including Sunflowers, Almond Blossom, and The Potato Eaters), 500 drawings and almost all of his letters.   

 The Van Gogh Studio says its namesake turned out 900 paintings and many more drawings and sketches in his short art life of ten years (1880-1890. The Van Gogh Museum estimates 1,300 works on paper). At both museums, standing close to the works (most covered in unobtrusive glass), his massive brush strokes are striking.  (Unlike Washington's National Gallery of Art which has automated devices to warn visitors they stand too close, sound devices in the Netherlands are human.)  

Pictured above are Van Gogh works in the two museums which I found of special interest. 

* A woman from New York City on my trip told me the Kröller-Müller Museum was the chief reason she had joined the Road Scholar group because it was the only museum which she had not visited, wanting to spend hours. On that day she skipped lunch (of vast importance to the rest of us!) to swoon in the Kröller-Müller galleries.

The entire collection at the Van Gogh Museum may be accessed here: www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/search/collection.  Enjoy! 

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Beltway bullies try to ensnare Biden: cartoon idea

On a map of the U.S., President Biden is surrounded in the center of the Beltway by the "elites," the "know-it-alls," the "yakkers," the politicians (commonly known as the Beltway bullies) who form on the BW a team of connecting wagons led by donkeys with their heads hung low. 

Like common criminals, the bullies are dressed alike in all black; they wear sunglasses and hoods. They whip the donkeys.

The president in top hat and aviators (of course) is dressed like Uncle Sam with the tails on his coat flying in the wind as he cries "Help! Help!" from the top of the Capitol to those outside the BW, the VOTERS, who fill the rest of the U.S. map.

Some of the VOTERS are on rearing horses but they all surround the BW with their lassos ready to throw to the president and THEY cry: "We're coming to the rescue, boss man!"

In a sandbox nearby, Trump plays with dolls.

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The July 4, 2024 Parade in Washington, D.C. in pictures!

Honoring the Folds of Honor in the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

The Chaparral High School Marching Band from Las Vegas, NV in the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

What would a parade be without the Clydesdales?  Thank you, Budweiser! In the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie
 

Troop 55 from Great Falls, VA, chartered by St. Francis Episcopal Church, National Capital Area Council in the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

Beauties on parade, July 4, 2024 Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

Waconia High School Marching Band, Waconia, MN in the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

He is? Representing the Netherlands in the Euro Bowl? In the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

This group represented areas in and around Seattle who not only played music but stopped to perform, too, in the the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

This group represented areas in and around Seattle who not only played music but stopped to perform, too, in the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C.  

"Jump when I say jump! 

"You put your right foot in, you take your right foot out, you put your right foot in and you shake it all about! You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around; that's what it's all about!""/By Patricia Leslie

These thirsties didn't get the message that D.C. had an areawide alert to boil water. At the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

In the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

Bolivian dancers in the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

Would you walk a mile in these shoes?  She did in the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

Sikhs love America and marched in the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

Sikhs in the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

John Marshall High School's Lawyers from Cleveland, OH marched in the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

It'll be here before you know it but now you have the date for the 2025 National Cherry Blossom Festival: Mar. 20 - Apr. 13.  You sure about that late date? Climate change has the blossoms flowering long before March 20! In the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

The Gotta Swingers were dancin' in the street in the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

What would a parade be without the Falun Dafa? At the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

The Falun Dafa had straight lines in the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

George and Martha?? Couldn't be since vehicles weren't around in the 18th century. But who's counting? The 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

Bring on the dogs! In the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

At the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

The Deuel High School Marching Cardinals from Cedar Lake, SD in the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

The Dev Garjana Percussion Band from Chantilly, VA in the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

At parade's end, crowds gathered to enter the cool Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C. but no one jumped in the water (at last sighting)/By Patricia Leslie

A side show on 12th Street, N.W. after the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

A side show on 12th Street, N.W. after the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

A side show on 12th Street, N.W. after the 2024 Independence Day Parade, Washington, D.C./By Patricia Leslie

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Avoid Play Airlines unless ...

What?  Never heard of it?  Nor had I but now you (and I) have heard of Play and here are a few details: 

You like being nickel and dimed to death?  Come on aboard! 

A charge for checked baggage?  Why, of course!  

How about a seat assignment?  Ka-ching! 

A carry-on fee?  Why, sure!

Coffee? Only three euros ($3.22) for instant!  Yummy!!

Water?  You want water on your long flight to help avoid dehydration?  Three euros, please.

Movies?  Transtlantic movies?  You must be kidding!  As I recall, the plane had no seat screens.

Communications? Contact with Play?  An AI penguin does the "talking."  Lots of fun!

Use of the restroom?  I'm not sure since I avoided anyone standing at the door with his hand or money can stuck out. 

Play reminds me of those other nameless US airlines which, by the time you total all the "extras" like a carry-on charge, make them more expensive than the higher-priced flights which have the costs built in.

It was one of those dumb times when I tried to find a cheaper price and find it, I did, but alas!  With a few "hiddens" added on which in the good ole USA, we call "bait and switch."

Praise God I did not choose Play to return from Europe. Instead, I rode Icelandair to Reykjavik to change planes.

There, Icelandair's pilot faulted Play for Play's errant use of a reserved gate which caused Icelandair's passengers waiting in line for 30 minutes to board for Dulles, to scramble to another gate, and once onboard, the pilot brought attention twice to Play's error. 

It caused us to be 30 minutes late to Dulles and created "a mess," for other flights, too, the pilot said over the intercom. 

To quote the adage:  You get what you pay for. Besides, any airline with a name like "Play" has got to be a joke.  It is!

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A 'dead man' returns to Alexandria

Isn't she beautiful?  Two men vie to claim "her" in Little Theatre of Alexandria's Is He Dead?  starring Lanny Warkentien as Jean-Francois Millet and the Widow Tillou /Little Theatre of Alexandria  

It’s the last week to see another delightful show at the Little Theatre of Alexandria by the maestro of words, Mark Twain who wrote Is He Dead?  in 1893 in the middle of deep depression after the death of his daughter, Suzy, from spinal meningitis. 

And yet during this dark, troubling time, Twain was able to write what's considered to be his best composition for the stage, Is He Dead?, a comedy, no less.

From left, Hanlon Smith-Dorsey is "Dutchy," Brendan Chaney is "Chicago," Zachary Litwiller is Phelim O'Shaughnessy, and Lanny Warkentien is Jean-Francois Millet and the Widow Tillou in Little Theatre of Alexandria's Is He Dead?  They are moving a casket loaded with bricks/Little Theatre of Alexandria

Mark Twain wrote plays?  Who knew?

You're not the only one who is surprised!  And he tried writing more than one!

Leave it to a scholar to bring this show to life only in this century  when Shelley Fisher Fishkin found it in the archives at the University of California at Berkeley and got it going on stage.  

But it wasn't a surprise to scholars.  Many of them had been aware for years of Dead's existence.

The story of this dead man is based on a fictional tale of a great but starving actual French painter, Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875) who feigns his death with the help of his buddies "Dutchy," (Hanlon Smith-Dorsey), "Chicago," (Brendan Chaney), and Phelim O'Shaughnessy (Zachary Litwiller), the purpose to raise the value of Millet's art which will reduce the debt he owes to the evil collector, Bastien André  (Kirk Lambert), who, of course is in love with the same woman, "Marie" (Sarah Keisler) as painter Millet (Lanny Warkentien). 

 

Did you get all that? 

The place is, where else? Gay Paree in 1846. The sets (by Matt Liptak) are divine, mon chéri, to match the luxurious costumes (always fun to see, by 

Jean Schlichting and Kit Sibley). 

Upon Millet's "death," André buys up Millet's paintings and the value goes whoosh!  Just like that and Millet is freed of debt.

To hide himself after he "dies," Millet  becomes his sister, the Widow Tillou and naturellement, "she" becomes André 's new love interest.  And also that of Marie's father (Leo Mairena).

Who would have guessed?

But how is our hero supposed to come back to life and marry Marie?  Where there's a will, there's a way and Twain made it happen, of course!

With a dash of Shakespeare thrown in, the production is a romp in mistaken identities and other humorous deceptions to tell us something more about love and money.  (We can never have enough of either.)

 

Lies do not stand the test of time and is love more important than money? It depends upon whom you ask.

Other cast members are Alayna Theunissen as Cecile Leroux (Marie's sister), Justin Beland, Anne Shively, Justin von Stein and Beverly Gholston.

More production crew members are Eleanore Tapscott, producer; Joey Pierce, director; Margaret Chapman, properties; Allison Gray-Mendes, set dressing and

Adam Konowe, lighting.

 

Michael Page was fight choreographer; Sue Pinkman designed hair and makeup; Robin Worthington was wardrobe coordinator; Russell M. Wyland was in charge of rigging; Alan Wray and Crystina McShay, sound.

Melissa Dunlap and Micheal J. O’Connor are stage managers.

What:  Is He Dead? As adapted by David Ives 

When: Now through June 8, 2024, Wednesday - Saturday nights, 8 p.m.

Where: Little Theatre of Alexandria, 600 Wolfe St., Alexandria, VA 22314

Tickets: $21 (weeknights) and $24 (Saturday night) + $3 fee/ticket. 

Audience: General

Duration: About 2 hours with one 15 minute intermission

Public transportation: Check the Metro and Dash bus websites. Dash is free to ride and has routes which are close to LTA.

Parking: is free on streets and at Capital One Bank at Wilkes and Washington streets, a block away. Paid parking is available at nearby garages.

For more information: 

Box Office: 703-683-0496; Main Office, 703-683-5778 or boxoffice@thelittletheatre.com.

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