Van Gogh Up Close

Organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Van Gogh up close is a traveling exhibition that features more than 70 works including 46 paintings by the Post-Impressionist artist. The show focuses on radical still lifes and landscapes that challenged tradition.

Vincent van Gogh was an artist of exceptional intensity, not only in his use of color and exuberant application of paint, but also in his personal life. Drawn powerfully to nature, his works -particularly those created in the years just before he took his own life- engage the viewer with the strength of his emotions. This exhibition focuses on these tumultuous years, a period of feverish artistic experimentation that began when van Gogh left Antwerp for Paris in 1886 and continued until his death in Auvers in 1890.

Radically altering and often outright abandoning traditional painting techniques, van Gogh created still lifes and landscapes unlike anything that had ever been seen before. He experimented with depth of field and focus. He used shifting perspectives and brought familiar objects "up close" into the foreground. And he produced some of the most original works of his career; works that dramatically altered the course of modern painting. Through some 40 masterpieces borrowed from collections around the world, Van Gogh Up Close is the first exhibition to explore the reasons and means by which this impassioned artist made such unusual changes to his painting style in the final years of his life.

Date: until May 6.
Location: Philadelphia Museum of Art. 26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Philadelphia, PA 19130. USA.
Opening hours: from Saturday to Thursday from 10am to 5pm. Fridays from 10am to 8.45pm.