11/07/2023
"Field with Poppies" (Saint-Rémy, late June 1889) [F581] Mia Feigelson Gallery Johanna van Gogh-Bonger - Mia Feigelson Gallery
The present work is Van Gogh's first landscape outside the hospital enclosure.
The present canvas was exhibited for the first time in Copenhagen in 1893, three years after the artist's death.
Given the unique, elaborately textural, and cursive handling of 'Field wiht Poppies', it is hardly surprise that Claude Monet greatly admired the painting when he saw it on Van Gogh's large one-man show at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris 1901.
By Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)
oil on canvas; 71 x 91 cm (28 x 35.8 in.)
© Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany
Purchased, 1911 https://bit.ly/3FwyODj
https://www.facebook.com/KunsthalleBremen
© Photo credit: Lars Lohrisch
Saint-Rémy, 2 July 1889
"My dear Theo,
We’ve had some fine hot days and I’ve got some more canvases on the go, so that there are 12 no. 30 canvases on the stocks (Including the present canvas; see Note 2).
(...) I congratulate you that your marriage can give you and Jo the rather rare pleasure of seeing your mother growing young again. It’s really for that that I’m sending you this letter (Theo and Jo had got married in mid-April 1889).
(...) Anyway, once again I haven’t seen a letter from Mother indicating so much inner serenity and calm contentment as this one – not for many years. And I’m sure that this comes from your marriage. It’s said that pleasing one’s parents brings a long life.
(...) I’ve begun to read the series I know the least well, which before, being distracted by something else or not having the time it was impossible for me to read, the series of the kings. I’ve already read Richard II, Henry IV and half of Henry V.
(...) .But what touches me in it, as in the work of certain novelists of our time, is that the voices of these people, which in Shakespeare’s case reach us from a distance of several centuries, don’t appear unknown to us. It’s so alive that one thinks one knows them and sees it." — Letter 784 https://bit.ly/2ggevO0
Two weeks after having received news about Jo's pregnancy and after having mailed this letter to Theo, Vincent had his first seizure ever since he had entered the asylum.
This news, his visit to Arles in mid July and the saga of the Kings by Shakespeare Vincent was reading at that time, could have been the causes of his severe attack which lasted for over a month.
Vincent sent this painting to Theo on 28 September 1889 — See Letter 806, Note 9 https://bit.ly/2kxNur0
"Although not specifically described in Van Gogh's letters, the hills are just visible in the background,and in the irregular pattern of cultivated fields the wheat is turning yellow, which suggests that this landscape was painted a week or so before the 'bread-crust' coloured wheat of the the canvas made in mid-June [F719] (see the painting https://bit.ly/2u55tKs).
It is actually Van Gogh's first landscape outside the hospital enclosure. Perhaps to celebrate his release, emphasized the luxuriant summer growth, open space, distant vista, uninterrupted by any too insistent horizontals - the very reverse of his restricted views inside the asylum garden.
Choosing a high viewpoint, he looked down on the foreground bushes and rapidly receding fields cutting out the sky. The rushing orthogonals recall some of The Hague compositions of 1882-83, views from his studio for example 'Rooftops' [F943] of July 1882 (see the watercolour https://bit.ly/2uwt7BK) and the open landscapes of a potato field, 'Potato Field behind the Dunes' [F1037] (see the drawingh https://bit.ly/2uuqMqG).
Compositionally, the picture also recalls one of his drawn panoramic views of Montmajour of July 1888 'La Crau seen from Montmajour' [F1420] (see the drawing https://bit.ly/2rfMM4P). And it looks forward to an Auvers landscape of June 1890 'Landscape with a carriage and train (In the rain)' [F760] (see the painting https://bit.ly/2vYsbE2) , with its viewpoint taken from above, irregularly receding fields, and varied crop cultivation. In terms of the Saint-Rémy paintings, however, this deep-spaced landscape is unique.
Van Gogh made a drawing after this canvas ([F1494] and included it in the '10 or so drawings' sent to Theo on 2 July 1889 ( See Letter 784, Note 16 https://bit.ly/2ggevO0).
The drawing lacks the house and cypresses at upper right. They were probably added to the painting later, wet on dry, when Van Gogh spoke of 'I’m retouching some studies from this summer – anyway I’m working from morning till night.' (See letter 800, 5 and 6 September 1889 https://bit.ly/2a7R0lX)"
— Source: 'Van Gogh in Saint-Rémy and Auvers' by Ronald Pickvance (1986)
Posthumous exhibition and the acquisition of this painting in 1911 by Gustave Pauli, director of the Kunsthalle Bremen:
The year 1910 was again dominated by the activities of the art dealer, Paul Cassirer, who organized a major retrospective exhibition, borrowing eleven pictures from Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, and obtaining two of the pictures owned by Louis Philippe Marie Alexandre Berthier de Wagram (who had bought 'The Poppy Field' in 1906 after it had been on show in Vienna) which had been exhibited at Druet's Gallery in Paris in 1909. The two paintings were:
'The Poppy Field' [F581] (the present painting) and 'Wheatfield with Cypresses' [F717] (see the painting https://bit.ly/2uOKWN2 ).
The Exhibiiton, with 52 paintings on show, did not result in any sales for Johanna van Gogh-Bonger.
Gustave Pauli, director of the Kunsthalle Bremen, acquired 'The Poppy Field' for the museum in 1911, triggering the so called 'Vinnen dispute', a scandal that culminated in a 'Protest by German Artists'. The protest campaign was initiated by the painter Carl Vinnen, who, incidentally, painted some sections of the old stairwell in the Hamburger Kunsthalle.
