Lecture | Judy Sund: The Look of Love in the Art of Van Gogh

Join art historian Judy Sund for an insightful lecture on Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh was a routinely rejected suitor and often disappointed lover whose images of courting couples constitute an unexpected leitmotif in his oeuvre. Born of wistful reverie rather than lived experience, his images of romantic love recall Medieval love gardens, Flemish party scenes, and Rococo fêtes galantes, though the lovers Van Gogh depicted are his own working-class contemporaries, and some of them so closely resemble the artist as to suggest a degree of self-projection. Shaped by contemporary literature and avant-garde Parisian painting, Van Gogh’s updated takes on the traditional Garden of Love – some set in public parks, others in moonlit dreamscapes – are routinely enhanced by evocative color schemes that the artist deployed to expressive effect. Opposing hues, he explained, “make each other shine” when paired, and “complete each other like man and wife.” The motif of lovers, which Van Gogh deemed especially “poetic,” inspired him to step outside his usual reliance on direct observation and produce some of his most fanciful paintings.

Judy Sund, professor emerita, City University of New York, is an art historian specializing in the visual culture of Europe and the Americas. She has published two books and several essays on Vincent Van Gogh, as well as articles on Antoine Watteau, Fernand Léger, Frida Kahlo, and twentieth-century appropriations of Precolumbian artifacts. Her research interests include artists’ responses to texts, the intersections of high art and popular culture (in advertising, fashion, Hollywood films), and constructions of the exotic. Her most recent book, Exotic (2019), is a panhistoric study of cultural encounter, with particular attention to Europeans’ global adventurism and its impacts on the arts.

This program will take place in Gilder Lehrman Hall on the Ground Floor. Doors to the Hall will open 30 minutes before the lecture begins. Seating is general admission.

Please e-mail public_programs@themorgan.org with questions about accessibility.