Van Gogh’s Cypresses at The Met: Artistic Vision of Towering Trees
The Met’s Van Gogh’s Cypresses is the first show to focus on the Dutch artist’s vision of the towering trees. Cypresses have been a motif that has been closely associated with Van Gogh and his power of expression.
The exhibition is organized chronologically in three galleries and showcases Van Gogh’s works that illuminate the extent of his fascination with the flamelike evergreens, particularly as they fueled and stoked his imagination during his two years in the South of France.
Thematic groupings and pairings of related paintings and drawings trace the artist’s progressive exploration of a motif that held its allure for two years, captivating and challenging him in equal measure.
Cypresses started to gain prominence in Van Gogh’s work in late June of 1889 while he was at Saint-Remy.
The works on display at Van Gogh’s Cypresses cover his initial sightings of the “tall and dark” trees in Arles and his journey to realizing their full evocative potential as he saw them at the asylum in Saint-Rémy.
Paintings at The Met’sVan Gogh’s Cypresses
Visitors to the exhibition at The Met will be able to view iconic paintings like Wheat Field with Cypresses and Van Gogh’s most famous painting The Starry Night.
The exhibition at The Met is especially significant because Wheat Field with Cypresses and The Starry Night have not been exhibited together since 1901.
There are also be rarely exhibited works that offer an unprecedented perspective on Van Gogh’s fascination with the flamelike trees.
Other highlights of the Vincent van Gogh’s Cypresses exhibition include Country Road in Provence by Night (Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo), as well as drawings from the Art Institute of Chicago, Brooklyn Museum, and Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
There is ample space around each of the works so that people can admire each of them.
Gallery 1: The Roots of his Invention: Arles, February 1888–May 1889
The exhibition’s first section reveals his initial, inspired response to the cypresses in works dating to the 15 months he spent in Arles.
It offers a glimpse of the vision he later brought to bear on the gravely majestic trees, foreshadowed in an April 1888 letter to his brother Theo: “I need a starry night with cypresses – or perhaps above a field of ripe wheat.” Featuring his only dated drawing from Arles of “March 1888”.
Gallery 2: The Making of a Signature Motif: Saint-Rémy, May–September 1889
The next section of the exhibition provides an unrivalled sense of his most formidable and concerted effort to tackle the “tall and massive trees” in earnest.
Here, his mesmerizing nocturnal scene, The Starry Night, is displayed alongside its daytime counterpart, Wheat Field with Cypresses, for the first time since 1901, when they were part of a large retrospective of the artist’s works held in Paris.
The Met’s exuberant plein-air study of the cypresses holding forth over a sun-scorched wheat field will be seen, also for the first time since 1901, with the artist’s studio rendition of the motif (from The National Gallery, London), and in tandem with the drawing that intervened between the two.
The reuniting of these three works at The Met’s Van Gogh exhibition presents a unique opportunity to appreciate his enterprising efforts to distill and refine his on-the-spot study from nature into a more “definitive” version in the quiet of his studio.
Gallery 3: Branching Out in Style: Saint-Rémy, October 1889–May 1890
The third gallery will provides fresh focus on Van Gogh’s continued preoccupation with cypresses during the final months of his sojourn.
The works presented in this section of the exhibtion takes the visitor from the ambition he folded into the interior view of his studio—which will be paired for the first time with the painting he represented on the wall—in October 1889, to the inventive studio compositions that brought his work in Provence to a close in May 1890.
Poignantly, it features Van Gogh’s last, and quite varied, plein-air views of the cypress and a disarming group of pictures conjured from imagination (“Reminiscences of the North”).
The works showcase both the extent of his ongoing fascination with the motif and such little-known aspects of his work as his “search for style.”
This provocative concluding chapter of the exhibition underscores the nature of Van Gogh’s art as a work in progress, spurred on by his determination and resourcefulness. He merged his memories of his native Netherlands with the Provençal landscape and reprising thematic elements introduced at the start of his sojourn, the two final paintings bring his longstanding artistic vision of the cypress motif full circle.
Appreciating Van Gogh’s Cypresses
The landmark paintings at the exhibition are complemented with drawings and illustrated letters—many rarely, if ever, lent or exhibited together.
The thematic exhibition offers an extraordinary opportunity to appreciate anew some of Van Gogh’s most celebrated works in a context that will reveal the backstory of their invention for the first time.
The exhibition is made possible by the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Foundation.
Additional support is provided by the Janice H. Levin Fund, Katharine Rayner, and the Aaron I. Fleischman and Lin Lougheed Fund.
“The show is a dream come true,” said Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French Director of The Met. “Marking the 170th-anniversary year of his birth, this highly focused survey unpacks Van Gogh’s distinctive vision of the commanding cypress trees. A once-in-a-lifetime gathering of works presents both an overview and an intimate glimpse of his creative process, challenging prevailing notions with fresh insights.”
Van Gogh’s Cypresses is curated by Susan Alyson Stein, Engelhard Curator of Nineteenth-Century European Painting at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press, it will be available for purchase from The Met Store.
The catalogue is made possible by the Janice H. Levin Fund.
Viewing Van Gogh’s Cypresses at The Met
Exhibition Dates: May 22 to August 27, 2023
Location: The Met Fifth Avenue, Gallery 199
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