Van Gogh Comes to Town

What is the value in asking whether a self-portrait is a "selfie"?

You’d think we’d never seen a painting before.

Well, that’s unfair, but the media coverage around the National Museum of Wales’ (Amgeuddfa Cymru) loan from the Musée d’Orsay to mark the closing of the Wales-France year of cultural exchange has far surpassed coverage of any painting in Wales since “the Banksy” turned up on the side of garage door in Port Talbot. Banksy is much more divisive than Van Gogh nowadays, although Van Gogh has had his moments of critical controversy in the last hundred years or so. He is now, though, a bona fide master, a household name (and for his painting rather than for the legend of his aural gestures). His work has been in Cardiff before; I saw his “Rain” in the same space many years ago, and realised the old maxim was entirely true: that to truly appreciate great art you have to stand in front of it. It is a specific requirement I had only really associated with scale before (on seeing Pollock, Liechtenstein, and Rothko at different points). Van Gogh’s “Rain” astounded me with its dimensional depth, the energy in the grooves, the kinetic representation of the elements - the height with which the paint lifts from the canvas.

His self-portrait at the National Museum in Cardiff retains all of these distinctions. Whereas “Rain” gives a physicalness to the art of recreating a downpour, there is a shuddering, flickering electricity fizzing in the brushstrokes applied to his own features. The Museum has hung it perfectly. It is lonesome, bright, timorous, and if at some distance it holds the eye, then a few steps closer and the porcupinal composition of hair and skin, the clerical tidiness of beard and brow, the frame held steady by those beady eyes, exhausted, haunted, and all those other unavoidable clichés when writing about Van Gogh. It’s the sort of irrefutable work of genius that any serious European capital should have on display.

The Van Gogh self-portrait will be on the wall until January 2025, and if the attention it was getting the morning I visited is anything to go by it will do wonders for the morale of a National Museum battered by government funding cuts. And it might also do wonders for the perception of the National Museum, as the Van Gogh is not the only painting hanging in the room. The collection owned by the Amgeuddfa Cymru is world-class, and the cuts to the organisation from the Welsh Government is nothing less than a policy of anti-culture. The beautifully curated show that positions the Van Gogh at its centre displays the depth and range of the collection, but also the intelligence and thoughtfulness and expertise of the sort of people currently being purged from the institution.

This interview with new Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales CEO Jane Richardson from a few weeks ago with the Guardian explains the situation well.

People who visit to see the Van Gogh will also see the mystical allure of Brenda Chamberlain (who I write about in my new book, published May 24 by Calon Books), the genius of David Jones (who I write about in my new book, published May 24 by Calon Books), and the mischievousness of Bedwyr Williams (who I write about in my new book, published May 24 by Calon Books). There is also a Cedric Morris, Shani Rhys James, Augustus John, and Anya Paintsil, completing the heavyweight Welsh contingent. They sit next to Francis Bacon and Rembrandt.

The theme of the exhibition too, is smart and lightly provocative. The Art of the Selfie is coyly framed as a question sans question mark; and rightly so, because it is obviously a stupid thing to assert. A self-portrait is an attempt to reveal an inherent truth of the artist, and it does so even if an artist is trying to perpetuate a stylised falsehood. A “selfie” is by its nature a lie, a fabricated version of an individual based on the subject’s self-projection, an exercise in obfuscating the true essence. But the exhibition title itself is an interesting way, albeit superficially, to bring the work of the past into the present.

Of course, you could always argue there is no need to do that, that doing so degrades the art. But that is why the superficiality of the title is its saving. Nobody going to see this exhibition will engage with the question for more than a moment. It’s simple marketing and it evaporates beneath the weight of the experience of standing before the Van Gogh.

Gary Raymond is a novelist, author, playwright, critic, and broadcaster. In 2012, he co-founded Wales Arts Review, was its editor for ten years. His latest book, Abandon All Hope: A Personal Journey Through the History of Welsh Literature is available for pre-order and is out in May 2024 with Calon Books.