Van Gogh's success
The occasion is the anniversary: 170 years from birth.
Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, so 2023 will mark the 170th anniversary.
In truth, the exhibition opened in Rome on 8 October 2022 will end on 26 March 2023 and therefore will be a few days away from the date of birth, but let's not be picky.
At Palazzo Bonaparte we find 50 works by the Dutch painter that everyone likes so much, the public, critics and curators.
Those who organize large exhibitions on van Gogh are on the safe side, success is guaranteed.
The myth of Vincent van Gogh was built thanks to several complementary aspects that were well integrated.
The first is the biography: a tormented life, the "license" of madness, a behavior that none of us would want from our neighbor, but which, far from us, please, makes for a lot of "misunderstood genius".
His style: van Gogh is one of the first, if not the first, to use painting to express his emotions and not ideas, programs, theories or anything else.
His paintings are immediately understandable, there is no need for "interpreters". They are simple, a little naive and this brings them closer to us. The colors are bright, no shades, they are not naturalistic, but the flower remains a flower, a house a house etc.
Great presence of the color yellow: it is the color of the sun, which our soul likes more than any other. Do a test: print some flyers with different backgrounds to let them take freely; the yellow ones will be the ones people will take the most.
Finally, the appreciation of collectors and speculators, who periodically bring one of van Gogh's paintings to the fore.
Record prices for this or that painting by Vincent, for tens and tens of millions of dollars, contribute to increasing the value of his work as much as it was perfectly ignored when he was alive.
The writer Mark Twain wrote a play called "The Adventures of a Deceased Artist", in which a group of penniless artists fake the death of one of their own. From that moment on, the prices of his paintings soared and the poor artists became rich.
Certainly greater consideration of Vincent van Gogh during his lifetime would have been beneficial, especially to him.
Andrea Giuseppe Fadini