with Bettyann Derbentli, Professor of Art History, Molloy College
Date: Tuesday, August 19
Time: 2:00 P.M.
Recently, formerly unknown letters of Van Gogh to his brother Theo have been discovered and translated. They reveal the influence of Japanese wood block prints on Van Gogh’s art with their linear style, shallow areas of color, beauty and mystery. Indeed, the Japanese prints of the 17th and 18th Centuries also impacted other artists of the era such as Manet, Monet and Degas. All of these used brilliant colors; strong, decorative outlines; flat patterns; swirling movement. Copies of the prints have been found in Van Gogh’s house in Arles where he painted his greatest pictures. Here he discovered cypresses, fruit trees, flowers and fields and he portrayed them with excitement and with aspects of Buddhist symbolism in the manner of the prints. A fascinating multi-cultural artistic synthesis in slides, where East meets West in an enriching encounter.