The Art Gallery of Ontario’s Mythical Landscapes Exhibit

Bonjour Van Gogh and Monet! The Mythical Landscapes exhibition with a French flare comes to Toronto —Laura Busby

Never been to the Tate Modern in London? Or how about the Museum of Modern Art in New York? Haven’t visited in a while? Miss traveling terribly? No problem! An assortment of some of the most important nineteenth and twentieth century modern artists will be represented in the stunning exhibition Mystical Landscapes: Masterpieces from Monet, van Gogh and more thanks to loans from the MoMA, Tate Modern and other institutions from around the world including Oslo, Chicago, Stockholm, Prague, Scotland, and Vienna.

Vision After the Sermon, Oil on Canvas, Paul Gaugin

Organized in partnership with the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the exhibition will present thirty-six artists including Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Paul Gauguin, Piet Mondrian, Georgia O’Keeffe and Canada’s very own Emily Carr through nearly 90 paintings and 20 works on paper. Following the display in Toronto, the exhibition will then travel to the Musée d’Orsay and open in spring 2017 (you know, in case you want to see it there too! Oui, s’il vous plaît!)

Emphasizing the years 1888 to 1930, the exhibition explores how select artists responded to a rapidly changing modern world and urban industrialization. The response shared by these artists was to avoid modernity and return, perhaps nostalgically so, to the subject of the landscape as a place of solitude, spirituality and mystical exploration. Van Gogh despised the light pollution of Paris and escaped to Brittany, France to find more rural communities for his paintings. Monet wasn’t too keen on World War I and bombs so he instead focused his work on the beauty of his backyard’s ponds and lilies.

Der Niesen Vom Heustrich Aus, Oil on Canvas, Ferdinand Hodler

While these artists attempted to avoid modern life per say, they were indeed modern artists in their techniques, styles and tenacity including their exploration of abstraction, thick paint, dark black lines, liberating color from nature and vivacious forms.

Mystical Landscapes: Masterpieces from Monet, Van Gogh and more is available October 22, 2016 – January 29, 2017. Timed-tickets go on sale October 7, 2016.