Artistic response

Van Gogh to Kandinsky presents a rare and exciting opportunity to see some 60 paintings as examples of landscape symbolism from major international institutions and private collections. The exhibition extends beyond the usual north European definitions of this subject, with the coupling of the emotionally charged graphic-colourist van Gogh with the increasingly reductive and programmatic application of colour-to-form associated with late Kandinsky. It challenges, therefore, conventional categorisations of modern European art. Who would think, moreover, that Lord Leighton, Hammershøi, Monet and Mondrian could share a common thesis, let alone inhabit the same gallery rooms?

In lesser hands, such an ambitious project could have descended into chaos and visual incoherence. However, the exhibition is displayed in several categories — Arcadia, Moods of Nature, Dreams and Vision, Silent Cities, Rhythms of Nature, and Towards Abstraction— that serve as a good introduction to what is both a vast and complex subject. The catalogue makes clear that landscape symbolism was not a defined movement, but more a response to dramatically changing events in Europe, Russia and North America.