How the bringing together of extremes—the countryside as a whole and the bustle here [in the city]—gives me new ideas.

—Vincent van Gogh, letter dated around January 2, 1886

Between 1882 and 1890, five artists—Vincent van Gogh, along with Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Emile Bernard, and Charles Angrand—flocked to villages on the fringes of Paris. Unlike the earlier Impressionists, who in the previous decade had spent significant time in suburban locations further from the city, this next generation of ambitious artists preferred the northwestern suburbs around Asnières. This area along the Seine River had long been a popular spot for recreation and relaxation but was becoming increasingly populated with coal, gas, and manufacturing facilities in the last decades of the 19th century. And while its industrial development was an unappealing aspect to many, these artists found in the changing physical and social landscape a fresh and rich source of creativity, as Van Gogh’s letter indicates.
8 Van Gogh Femme Dans Un Jardin 2
Visiting Van Gogh and the Avant-Garde

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Vertically oriented painting, the top half blue sky, of a three-story structure surrounded by a fence aside an open road on which people pass, including a man in a top hat. On the side of the building in loose brushstrokes is lettering suggesting the name “Restaurant Rispal.”

The Restaurant Rispal at Asnières, 1887

Vincent van Gogh. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Gift of Henry W. and Marion H. Bloch, 2015.13.10. Photo courtesy Nelson-Atkins Media Services, Jamison Miller

The area’s visual vocabulary—its bridges, embankments, factories, parks, and villages—along with its sunlight, water, and brilliant natural color prompted intense experimentation. Each artist explored the use of discrete brushstrokes and strong colors in innovative ways, and in turn developed novel styles of painting. Seurat and Signac began applying contrasting colors in unblended strokes (Divisionism). They then pioneered the use of small dots of complementary colors (Pointillism) to achieve an optical mixture in the viewer’s eye. Bernard, having reached the limits of these two styles, experimented with laying out large swathes of bold color defined by dark contours (Cloisonnism) in the last years of the decade. Van Gogh and Angrand followed the developments of Seurat and Signac, absorbing many of these approaches into their later painting styles.
Inspired by Asnières
Landscape painting with a band of multicolor factories at center, their slim smokestacks rising into a sky of gray, green, and bue. The grass before them is long and wild in shades of yellow and green.

Factories at Clichy, summer 1887

Vincent van Gogh. Saint Louis Art Museum, Funds given by Mrs. Mark C. Steinberg by exchange, 579:1958
A painting rendered in tiny dots of a wide swath of silvery-gray, shimmering river containing a white sailboat and a slim rowboat with one occupant, tiny against the water. In the foreground is an arching tree, beyond, a riverbank and a small square building.

The Seine at La Grande Jatte, 1888

Georges Seurat. Musées royeaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels
Two figures, rendered entirely in opaque black, walk away from the viewer on a diagonal roadway flanking a river, above which a train crosses laterally on a bridge. In the foreground are two overturned rowboats, blocks of bright green and red.

Iron Bridges at Asnières, 1887

Emile Bernard. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Grace Rainey Rogers Fund, 1962
Painting in tiny brushstrokes of a structure with several with red rooflines surrounded by a short wooden fence. At left and right, circular scaffolding surrounded other industrial structures.

Gasometers at Clichy, 1886

Paul Signac. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest, 1948
A dreamy, hazy painting of mostly green, blue, yellow dots suggesting a luminous fog on a river, sky and water melting together save for silhouetted smokestacks in the distance, a lone boat in shadowy tones at center.

The Seine at Dawn, 1889

Charles Angrand. Musée Petit Palais, Geneva

More than 75 paintings and drawings from this intensely creative period—many from private collections and rarely publicly displayed—come together for this insightful presentation. Among them are 25 works by Van Gogh, including paintings from all three triptychs that he executed in these suburbs. Uniting these outstanding works in this exhibition not only sheds new light on the boundary-pushing techniques Van Gogh and his fellow painters developed during this time, but it also illuminates the power of place to inspire—to encourage pioneering work, launch career-changing ideas, and shape artistic identities.

Van Gogh and the Avant-Garde: The Modern Landscape is organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

This exhibition is curated by Jacquelyn N. Coutré, Eleanor Wood Prince Associate Curator, Painting and Sculpture of Europe, at the Art Institute of Chicago, and Bregje Gerritse, researcher at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, with the assistance of Jena K. Carvana, curatorial associate in Painting and Sculpture of Europe at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Image info:
The Restaurant Rispal at Asnières, 1887

Vincent van Gogh. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Gift of Henry W. and Marion H. Bloch, 2015.13.10. Photo courtesy Nelson-Atkins Media Services, Jamison Miller

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Tags: Chicago, Jacquelyn N. Coutré, Jena K. Carvana, Loop, The Art Institute of Chicago, Van Gogh, Van Gogh and the Avant-Garde: The Modern Landscape