Vincent’s bedroom in Arles, 1888 by Vincent van Gogh

The Van Gogh Museum and the Kröller-Müller Museum are working together for the second time on an exhibition in Japan with works by Vincent van Gogh. The exhibition Van Gogh: The adventure of becoming an artist contains prominent works including The bedroom and The sower (Van Gogh Museum), Ravine and Portrait of Joseph-Michel Ginoux (Kröller-Müller Museum). The partners in this collaboration are the Tokyo Shimbun - Chunichi Shimbun newspapers and Tokyo Broadcasting System Television, Inc. In 2005, the Van Gogh Museum and the Kröller-Müller Museum also organised a successful exhibition in Japan. 

The exhibition gives an impression of the methods and techniques with which Van Gogh developed stylistically and technically, and of those who influenced him in the process. This is why the exhibition will also include paintings by several other famous artists: Van Gogh had not seen all of these works, but they do give an impression of the practices that were common at the time.

Throughout his career, Van Gogh displayed a great boldness in terms of artistic experimentation. He was inquisitive, inventive and, as his artistic skills developed, increasingly able to use materials and techniques to achieve the effects he was striving for. In the process, he learned a great deal from other artists, in some cases because he knew and exchanged information with them, for example with Anthon van Rappard, Anton Mauve, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Signac, Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin. He also read about the practices of artists such as Eugène Delacroix, and when he had the opportunity, he studied old masters like Frans Hals, Rembrandt and Rubens by visiting museums.

The exhibition will also devote attention to research methods that allow artists' techniques to be unravelled, such as radiography, infrared reflectography and pigment analysis.