Van Gogh’s Dutch masters are under fresh scrutiny — and the evidence is more specific than the familiar story of admiration.
A new issue of Oud Holland: Journal for Art of the Low Countries presents what is described as the first comprehensive account of Vincent van Gogh’s engagement with 17th-century Dutch painting. The essays focus on Johannes Vermeer, Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals, Jacob van Ruisdael, and Jan van Goyen, and they sharpen the record around which works Van Gogh likely knew, when he encountered them, and how those encounters filtered into his own art.
Elmer Kolfin, an art historian at the University of Amsterdam, argues that Van Gogh probably saw only three Vermeer paintings in person: “View of Delft” at the Mauritshuis in The Hague, “The Lacemaker” at the Louvre in Paris, and “Woman in blue reading a Letter” at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Even so, Van Gogh knew Vermeer through reproductions and writing. In a letter from Arles in September 1888, he described the blue sky and pale sun in terms that recall Vermeer’s palette, then painted “The Yellow House” shortly afterward.
Rubens appears as a more concentrated influence. Teio Meedendorp of the Van Gogh Museum places that impact in the three months Van Gogh spent in Antwerp in winter 1885-86. During that period, Van Gogh was painting portraits of female sex workers and wrote that Rubens was “certainly making a strong impression” on him, especially through “strokes of pure red.” Meedendorp points to the modeling of faces in works such as “Portrait of a Woman” as evidence of that exchange.
Rembrandt remained a lifelong reference point. Alison McQueen of McMaster University notes that both artists became known for self-portraits — Rembrandt painted just over 40, while Van Gogh completed 35. Van Gogh likely knew Rembrandt’s self-portraits mainly through black-and-white reproductions, but he singled out “The Prodigal Son in the Inn (Self-portrait with Saskia)” and “Self-portrait as Zeuxis” in letters. He returned to the theme again in September 1889, writing to his sister Wil while working on two self-portraits after his recovery at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.
The blog will pause in July and August and resume posting on September 4, but the new research already offers a more exact map of Van Gogh’s dialogue with the Dutch past.
