Achi news desk-
He is Vincent van Gogh of sunflower fame, born in Holland on March 30 1843 but best known for the works he completed after moving to Paris in 1886. The very definition of the tortured artist, he suffered of serious mental health problems and died on July 29 1890 as a result of a gunshot wound suffered two days earlier. The previous year, during a stay in an asylum in Provence, he had painted one of his most famous works – The Starry Night, which can now be seen in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Van Gogh’s paintings of sunflowers began in Paris in 1887 and turned into a series of many similar studies. One was given to van Gogh’s fellow painter, Paul Gauguin – indeed Gauguin’s 1888 portrait, The Painter Of Sunflowers, shows a brown-suited and red-bearded van Gogh at work on a still life.
What is the show?
Entitled Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience, it is a spectacular traveling show that uses cutting-edge projection technology to virtually put visitors inside the paintings and artworks. The high-definition images – the organizers promise a resolution of four trillion pixels – give a close-up look at van Gogh’s famous brushwork, laid out in thick, heavy slabs in a style known as impasto.
What’s in it?
The show promises to see 300 works of art by van Gogh, although obviously these are not the real ones. The tour begins in the Introductory Hall, where visitors are presented with material such as some of the many letters van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo. Then, in the grandly titled Immersion Room, visitors are met with paintings “released from their frames” where they can interact with the artworks themselves and be “enveloped in colorful flowers, cafes and impressive landscapes, moving and swirling across the projections. walls and floors.”
What else do they say?
“[Van Gogh’s] paintings are released from their two-dimensional realms and rendered into three-dimensional, fully immersive scenes that swirl and flow with color and movement,” the organizers promise. “Visitors are taken on a journey through the artist’s world from darkness to light, enriched by his own dreams, thoughts and words set to a stirring symphonic score.”
Where is he from?
The show, which covers 30,000 square feet of exhibition space, is one of several traveling van Gogh-themed extravaganzas. So far, this one has appeared in cities across America and for its appearance in Glasgow it will be set up in the cavernous SEC Center.
When is it on?
It opens on Thursday 11 July and runs daily from 10am to 8pm, closing on Sunday 4 August. There are peak and off-peak tickets which start at £15.30 and go up to £45.40. Entry is free for children under the age of three.
