Van Gogh show travels thru genius' soul

(ANSA) - Vicenza, October 5 - A new art show features Vincent Van Gogh in a true journey through the soul of the Dutch master, opening in Vicenza on October 7 and running through April 8 in the splendid exhibition spaces of the Basilica Palladiana.
    The show features 129 masterpieces comprised of 43 oil paintings and 86 drawings, on loan from the world's most prestigious museums, including Otterlo's Kroller-Muller Museum.
    The works on loan are of such value that they've been insured at the maximum allowed: 1.1 billion euros.
    Titled "Van Gogh: Between the Grain and the Sky", the show marks the return to Vicenza of art critic and curator Marco Goldin, founder of "Linea d'Ombra", which organises art exhibitions.
    With this show, and an investment of more than 4.5 million euros, Goldin has produced and curated perhaps his most complete and emotionally engaging undertaking, with a selection of works that recreates a crucial decade in the artist's life almost day by day.
    "It's a rare show," Goldin said of the exhibition, which has already received 115,000 reservations.
    "The works themselves, in this exhibition become like the pages in the diary of a life," he said.
    In the summer of 1880, Van Gogh announces to his brother Theo that he intends to become an artist. He initially trains for five years, first in Belgium and then in the Netherlands.
    "For three years, he only draws," Goldin said.
    "They aren't preparatory drafts, but rather finished works on their own, looking at the canvases of Millet and the painters of the Hague School," he said.
    The subjects of the drawings are peasants, diggers, miners - a humble and poor side of humanity.
    The first oil painting comes in 1881, a still life titled "Straw Hat".
    In the exhibition, the rooms begin to light up with Van Gogh's most famous and beautiful paintings, from the 1888 work "The Langlois Bridge" to the marvelous depictions of the park at the asylum in Saint-Remy (reconstructed with a model that takes up an entire room), as well as fields of grain, poppies, and vineyards.