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1 day agoVan Gogh's yellow: more than just a color
Yellow holds significant meaning for Van Gogh, symbolizing brilliance and modernity during his time in Arles, influencing his iconic Sunflowers series.
Today I rented the right-hand wing of this building... it's painted yellow outside, whitewashed inside. Set in Place Lamartine, near the railway station, the building had two wings. The left side was occupied by a grocery shop (it has a pink awning in Van Gogh's painting). The right side (with the green windows) was Van Gogh's, with two small bedrooms upstairs, his studio was behind the front door and the kitchen was at the rear.
These 1944 wartime copies of Lust for Life are scarce and the few which do survive, like our example, tend to be bashed up, because they were often kept in the pockets of US uniforms. The thin pages have browned after more than 80 years, since paper was in short supply and the books were only intended to last for the duration of the war.
Van Gogh's Sower in a Wheatfield with setting Sun (July 1888) will be auctioned by Sotheby's in New York on 18 November, with an estimate of $8m-$10m. If it exceeds the $8.8m hammer price of (August 1888), a portrait of a young woman from Arles which sold at Christie's in 2021, it will set a new auction record for a Van Gogh drawing.
The first comprehensive exhibition of Van Gogh's portraits of the postman Joseph Roulin and his family has just arrived in Amsterdam, following its presentation in America. Van Gogh and the Roulins: Together Again at Last opens today (3 October) at the , and runs until 11 January 2026. At Boston's it attracted 280,000 visitors-and it's likely to see even more in Amsterdam.
For well over a century it was a family secret: Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law, Jo Bonger, had a short relationship with the Dutch Impressionist painter Isaac Israëls. Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum has just published the surviving sent by Israëls to Bonger, and is presenting a about their "intimate friendship'. Captivated by Vincent: The Intimate Friendship of Jo van Gogh-Bonger and Isaac Israëls (until 25 January 2026) is not just about the relationship, but equally importantly it covers its impact of Van Gogh's art on Israëls.
Adventures with Van Gogh has just marked its 300th post since the weekly blog was launched in 2018. For the 200th, in February 2023, we ran a compilation of what had then been the ten most popular posts. This week, starting with the most popular, we look back at the posts which have attracted most readers since then. Some of the topics were predictable, others came as quite a surprise. All have recently been updated with new information for this latest compilation.
With loans from nearly 50 museums and private collections, nearly all the paintings were displayed in ornate gilded frames-which Van Gogh disliked. Van Gogh's The Large Plane Trees (Road Menders at Saint-Rémy) (December 1889) in a typical example of a French Baroque gilded frame-it has been on the painting since it was sold by the dealer Paul Rosenberg in 1947 Cleveland Museum of Art (photograph The Art Newspaper)
To begin with the obvious, the stars of the depicted Plough (or Big Dipper) would never look quite so prominent, even in the relatively muted artificial light of 19th-century Arles. In the actual sky, the Plough points to the North Star, so these stars would have appeared behind Van Gogh when he was looking south at the view towards the centre of Arles.
"The Red Vineyard is among Van Gogh's most dramatically coloured Provençal landscapes, but it is also famed for being the only painting that the artist is certain to have sold."
What is even less widely known is that, in the past, two ambassadors have brought their Van Gogh masterpieces with them to enhance the house's reception rooms.
" Vincent is a pivotal figure in my life and career. My journey with art has always been intertwined with his influence, and acquiring this piece is a realization of a lifelong dream. I hope this can inspire more collectors in Korea to share their passion for art."