Hiroshige VAN GOGH

03 October 2012 to 17 March 2013

Japan Dreams

two exhibitions simultaneously on two sites in the Pinakothek, allow visitors to compare the work of Van Gogh to that of Hiroshige .

Everything has been said about the psychological fragility of Van Gogh on his bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and its his attacks of delirium accompanied by hallucinations, and their direct impact on its work and his way of seeing the world. But it is legitimate to ask whether the analysis of its serious problems, linking the analysis of his works has not been finally forget the basics.

A more traditional approach to his work reveals that his foremost references will turn to an art that is the opposite of what he has produced, that of Hiroshige. An art whose entire philosophy is based on the strength, composition, serenity, travel and inner peace.

This meeting of opposites is amazing but made possible today thanks to the simultaneous exposure of the art of Van Gogh and the Hiroshige at the Pinacoteca de Paris . Never as thorough a study of Van Gogh references had been made and never as bold confrontation had been attempted. It helps to realize that references to Van Gogh Japanese art in general and Hiroshige in particular are not only reduced to a few key works, the master copies obvious be Edo (former name of Tokyo until 1868), but the majority of his landscapes from 1887 are built around a central repository which can be found almost systematic , automatically, the work of Hiroshige.

Showing forty works, mainly landscapes, the exhibition – which is the first devoted solely to the Dutch artist for decades in Paris – is a clear demonstration of the importance of Japonisme in impressionist art.

Hiroshige by comparison with these two concurrent exhibitions is obviously a first confrontation that allows unparalleled precision.