THE COLOUR & THE LIGHT

There are two artists who loomed large at the end of the nineteenth century: Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.

Both artists benefitted from the explosive avant-garde art scene in Paris, catalysed by the fiercely independent Impressionists. Van Gogh and Gauguin separately forged their own artistic paths, which intertwined throughout their lives.

This course will follow both artists’ careers in parallel, as they became collaborators and rivals, both reacting to the Parisian avant-garde and drawing new boundaries for artistic practice along the way.

Van Gogh’s work is famously personal, and our exploration of his work can be supported by his extensive personal correspondence, preserved and published posthumously by his sister-in-law.

Gauguin’s artistic ambition ultimately carried him to Tahiti, where his work mined internal anxieties within a problematic colonial context.