Kiefer/Van Gogh Exhibition

Vincent Van Gogh Field with Irises Near Arles 1888. Oil on canvas. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent Van Gogh Foundation)

Following the recent exploration of Anselm Kiefer's 60 year obsession with the Dutch Impressionist at The Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Royal Academy of Arts exhibits their works together for the first time in the UK.

Born in 1945, Kiefer's works carry a post war existential guilt, and Heideggar's philosophical concepts of 'Being and Time' permeates his artistic output.

In 1963 aged 18, Kiefer received a travel bursary and made an 'initiation journey', retracing Van Gogh's life as an artist. He started in the Netherlands where Van Gogh was born, travelling through Belgium to Arles and Fourques in Provence.

Kiefer kept a diary during his journey making drawings of scenes and motifs that Van Gogh depicted, studying the 'confident construction of his expressive style.'

Vân Gogh's sunflowers radiate warmth and life as he sees them as a sign of his artistic rebirth.

Kiefer is drawn to sunflowers as a symbol of life and death; "the moment they explode they are yellow and fantastic: that's already the declining point. So, sunflowers are a symbol of our condition of being.'

Van Gogh's landscapes exude intense emotions, both joy and sorrow. Kiefer greatly affected by growing up in a German town devastated by World War II, believes that landscapes stand as silent witnesses to human history,

Most of the 800 surviving letters that Van Gogh wrote to his family and friends contain at least one reference to literature. He wrote to his brother Theo: 'books and reality and art are the same kind of thing for me'.

Mythology, poetry, and literature have a profound influence on Kiefers work.

A medieval German poem by Walther von der Vogelweide is referenced in 'Under the Lime Tree on the Heather ',2014, exhibited for the first time. It bears some relationship to Van Gogh's Field with Irises Near Arles1888 and Poppy Field 1890. It is more colourful and uplifting than Kiefer's other works .

Fascinated by the sky and the cosmos he sees in Van Gogh's The Starry Night 1889 the night sky as a window into a mysterious universe. Kiefer's work of the same title replaces Van Gogh's swirling strokes of blue with bundles of golden wheat, anchoring the cosmos of the sky to the crops grown out of the soil, suggesting a profound connection between heaven and earth.

Seven Van Gogh paintings and some rarely seen drawings are displayed in three rooms alongside Kiefer's drawings, monumental pictures and a metallic sculpture created for the exhibition of a sunflower scattering seeds onto a pile of metal books.

Van Gogh paintings in the middle room include the glorious 'Field with Irises near Arles,' Nestling through the trees are the orange roofs of the church and houses.' Poppy Fields',1890, the last of his paintings, bears a poignant inscription about its rescue from postwar Germany and seeking to find the original owner.

Seven of Kiefer's huge multi-media canvases, made with oil and acrylic, gold leaf, straw, clay, burnt wood, wire and sunflower seeds, are in rooms one and three. They are melancholic and angst ridden responses to Van Gogh's riots of colour.

Kiefers' massive 'Nevermore' ,2014, depicts golden wheat, surmounted by a flock of menacing ravens which appear more threatening than Van Gogh's birds in his Wheatfield with Crows, 1890. The title refers to Edgar Allen Poe's poem of 1845, in which a grieving man is driven mad by a raven repeating the word 'Nevermore'.

The youthful Kiefer skilfully emulated Van Gogh in his drawings displayed alongside those by Van Gogh. 'La Crau Seen from Montmajour,1888, is remarkable. A large scale intricately detailed composition, it is an autonomous work of art from the Dutch master.

The shared inspiration in nature and the human condition of these two artists proves a riveting combination in a thought-provoking exhibition .

Whilst at the Academy drop into the Summer Exhibition to see the highlight this year of two impactful pictures by Dame Tracey Emin. The monotype portrait 'You're Still Beautiful' is stunning, exuding resilience, maturity and strength with strong pen strokes and definition. The almost Madonna like figure - the hair could be a veil -has an air of suffering, acceptance, and wisdom, conveying a spiritual quality. Following cancer there is acceptance of what life has thrown at her. The eyes look intently at us and at something beyond infinity. It is a powerful representation of the aging feminine.

Priced at £150,000 it was sold two weeks after the opening.

Her Acrylic painting of 'The Crucifixion' is not for sale. It is more typical of Emin's style of rapid fluid line drawing.

The central figure of a traditonal bearded Christ wears a crown and the crucified figure on his right (the viewers left) appears feminine in shape and apparel. Interestingly in Christian iconography the Good Thief is always portrayed on Christ's right.

To avoid disappointment, note that the Royal Academy does not accept cash whatsoever only cards in payment .

Kiefer/Van Gogh run until 26th October. Summer exhibition closes 17th August

See: www.royalacademy.org.uk for further details.