Van Gogh revisited (20)

This is the 20th in a series on Vincent van Gogh’s works that are on display at the exhibition titled “Van Gogh in Paris: a Dialogue with Modernism” at Seoul Arts Center. ― ED.

Vincent van Gogh painted on various materials during his stay in Paris from 1887 to 1888. He mostly used ready-made canvases and also often used ready-primed cardboard (a cheaper alternative to canvas). Sometimes, he cut the canvas to make better use of it.

"Sunset in Montmartre" (1887) from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is painted on a horizontally wide canvas, which is actually cut to a nonstandard size.

The Dutch painter captured the sun setting in Paris. He painted the sky first, then the middle plane and finished the foreground to capture the scenery.

The painting was wrongly reputed to be a moonlit scene, but experts say since there is no reflection of the moon on the ground and the sun is on the left side of the painting, it is more likely to be an evening glow.