An afternoon with Vincent

The other weekend found me in Seoul, visiting a friend from my excursion to Dokdo and enjoying a little culture in the form of one of my favorite painters.  I am referring of course to Vincent Van Gogh, who is currently being featured at the Seoul Arts Center.  Though I was not permitted to photograph the exhibit itself, I did indulge in a few photos of the Arts Center ground before entering the exhibition.

Just outside the exhibit being held in the Hangaram Art Museum

Just outside the Arts Center Opera House

Inside the Opera House!

I enjoyed my experience in the Seoul Arts Center.  Van Gogh is forever a favorite of mine and I cannot help but be enamored by his work.  This exhibit featured much of Van Gogh's work from his time in Paris, the intention was to show a historical progression in the artist's style.  I would love to say more about the content of this historical examination, but the exhibit's notes were featured only in Korean (I suppose that should not surprise me).  The exhibit also boasted the largest collection of Van Gogh's self portraits on traveling exhibition. 
Altogether, I found the exhibit to be much smaller than I had hoped.  I have a particular favorite Van Gogh at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (their only Van Gogh) which is a spectacular landscape.  Many of the pieces in this exhibit were smaller subjects and portraits.  Not my favorite, but excellent pieces to be sure.  The exhibit definitely did demonstrate a shift in the painter's style over the years he spent in Paris. 
Though the exhibit was quite crowded, as most things in Seoul are, I was able to enjoy getting close to several paintings to take in their content.  I rather love Van Gogh for the texture of his paintings as well as the clever way he utilizes color.  I distinctly recall enjoying one of his self portraits in which he used teal, blue, orange, and beige for the color of his own skin.  I see a great sadness in the self portraits of Van Gogh.  It's a deep and calm sadness.  Like the sadness I feel when a beautiful sunset has just slipped down from dusk into night, and is gone forever.
The Van Gogh in Paris Exhibition will be at the Seoul Arts Center until February.  Should you find yourself in need of some culture and happen to be on the south side of the city, drop in.  I'd say it's worth the walk, but the rest of the Arts Center was lacking in exhibits enjoy.  It does not seem that the Hangaram Art Museum has much of an in house collection of arts to enjoy, so it won't make for a long aesthetic indulgence.  It will, however, sate an appetite for a world famous painter.  If only for a little while.