Conference Munch : Van Gogh
Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, November 9 and 10, 2015
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) and Edvard Munch (1863-1944) are widely considered as highly influential artists of modern art. They are known for their emotionally charged paintings and drawings, their personal and innovative style, and their lifes full of hardship. They have been frequently connected both by the general public and art historians. Indeed, their oeuvres and artistic ambitions show striking parallels. They both strived for modernization of the arts by depicting existential and universal themes in an expressive pictorial language.
The exhibition Munch : Van Gogh (Van Gogh Museum, 25 September 2015 – 17 January 2016), co-organized with the Munch Museum in Oslo, focuses for the first time on the similarities and affinities between these two artists. Instead of taking this common comparison for granted, it looks deeper into the origins of their art, the influences they underwent, the development of their style and technique and their artistic ambitions, so as to understand more profoundly the essence of their art and why it is that these artists are so often bracketed together.
In conjunction with the exhibition a two-day conference will be held to further discuss the affinities between Munch and Van Gogh, but also to explore related topics with a wider scope. We invite papers related to the following topics:
The Creation of Art
serial working: campaigns, repetitions, pendants, series
the importance of colour
emotion & expression
self-confessional / the personal and the universal
artist-writers (or writer-artists)
The Interpretation of Art
the shaping of artists’ legends
the importance of the artist’s biography
lasting legacies
echoes of the Scream and the Sunflowers: from high art to popular culture
the problem of influence
creativity & insanity
Please send proposals (max. 250 words) for a 20-minute paper (in English) for this conference to symposium@vangoghmuseum.nl by 15 August at the latest. The selection of papers will be communicated before 1 September.
Organizing committee: Magne Bruteig (Munch Museum), Maite van Dijk (Van Gogh Museum), Leo Jansen (Huygens Institute)
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