(20 Jan 2020) LEAD IN: A self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh has been confirmed as genuine after decades of doubt over its authenticity.
Researchers at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam analysed the painting which is thought to portray him during a period of psychosis.
STORY-LINE:
A mystery is finally solved.
After years of doubts about its authenticity, this Vincent van Gogh self-portrait has been confirmed as the genuine work of the Dutch master.
Experts in Amsterdam analysed the painting and announced the results today - much to the relief of Norway's National Museum which owns it.
"It has immense importance," says Mai Britt Guleng, a curator at Norway's National Museum.
"Now we have a Van Gogh again because it had been questioned in the literature for a period of time and we were in doubt as to whether it was genuine or not. But now we can feel confident because of the very thorough work and research that the Van Gogh Museum has been through."
The contested self-portrait was not the only one painted by van Gogh - he created a number of others, including this one that was on display in London last year.
And it was differences between work already known to be genuine and the Norwegian-owned painting which raised doubts about its authenticity.
The use of a palette knife to flatten brush strokes on Van Gogh's face and what were then considered to be unusual colours in the painting led to speculation it was not the real deal.
But Van Gogh Museum researcher Louis van Tilborgh has dispelled those doubts today.
"It's a little bit different than the other self-portraits that he made in the south of France," he says.
"That's I think, the main reason in combination with the fact that it doesn't have a full provenance at the time, at least it didn't have a full provenance at the time, leading back to Van Gogh."
But researchers have confirmed the oil-on-canvas of the anguished looking painter was completed in the late summer of 1889 while Van Gogh was at the Saint-Remy asylum in southern France.
Van Tilborgh says the unusual pigments are "in total harmony" with what researchers know the painter used at the asylum.
And the use of the palette knife offers a fascinating insight into Van Gogh's state of mind at the time.
"What makes it really strange is indeed that he has used his palette knife for the face, so he has painted it and during the process he suddenly decides that it has to become flat," says van Tilborgh.
"We tend to think that it has to do with the fact that's indeed made during a period when he was suffering from the psychosis. It was at the end, it was at an interval in which he was permitted to paint, but nevertheless, he was still, I think, sick. And he wanted, in this picture, it's evidentially that he wanted to say in this picture, that he was an ill person."
Van Tilborgh says Van Gogh used painting as both a way of portraying his mental breakdown and of helping him to recover.
And he says comparing this painting with two other self-portraits shows his progress through mental illness as he gets better.
Norway's National Museum bought the painting in 1910.
The museum asked the Van Gogh Museum to analyze it in 2014.
It was a tense wait to find out whether or not they had purchased a genuine portrait by the artist giant.
"They warned us and said you might not like the result," says Mai Britt Guleng.
Find out more about AP Archive:
Twitter:
Facebook:
Google+:
Tumblr:
Instagram:
You can license this story through AP Archive:
0 Comments