Vive L’impressionnisme! at the Van Gogh Museum: a compelling, eco-conscious celebration of impressionism

Despite its corny title, Vive L’Impressionnisme!, which recently opened at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, is well worth seeing. Marking the 150th anniversary of the first impressionist exhibition, the show tells the story of how one of the movement’s founders, Claude Monet, and his contemporaries were supported by a few enlightened Dutch collectors and their pictures absorbed into Dutch institutions.

It brings together numerous works that are rarely, if ever, seen together, assembled from ten museums and seven private collections across the Netherlands. The result is a fascinating reflection of Dutch taste over the past century and a half.

Vive L’Impressionnisme! is cleverly curated. The exhibition is arranged thematically, with landscapes on the first floor and modern life paintings on the upper level. The potential monotony of a continuous hang on a long wall is avoided by the introduction of sculpture, as well as aesthetic “ensembles” of paintings or works on paper.

Upstairs, the normally cavernous exhibition space is divided into discrete rooms, in order to allow the visitor a more intimate viewing experience. Among the most remarkable aspects of the show is the decision to display paintings, sculpture and works on paper side-by-side. It’s a democratisation of art that mimics the way the impressionists themselves exhibited their work.

On one wall you can see four states of Camille Pissarro’s etching The Old Cottage (1879), three of which were exhibited at the fifth impressionist exhibition in 1880. In each successive state, Pissarro observes the way in which the cottage and surrounding landscape are affected by the changing light and atmosphere, anticipating Monet’s later series paintings. In both oil painting and printmaking, these artists privileged experimental techniques and the analysis of light and colour over academic finish.

In the second half of the 19th century, Dutch collectors and critics were more attuned to the overcast skies and earthy tones of the local Hague School painters than to the broken brushwork and high-keyed palette of impressionism. The new art was dismissed by critics as the “ravings of madmen, drunks and children”.

Encouraged by his brother Vincent, Theo van Gogh’s efforts to sell impressionist art via the Goupil Gallery in the Hague were sadly thwarted. However, he did influence his wealthy brother-in-law, Andries Bonger, who became the first Dutch collector to develop a taste for the work of Paul Cézanne. Dutch lawyer Cornelis Hoogendijk also acquired around 25 Cézanne works before 1900, while another pioneer collector, Helene Kröller-Müller, specialised in the work of Van Gogh as well as the impressionists.

Read more: Van Gogh Museum at 50: Vincent van Gogh and the art market – a brief history

As the exhibition unfolds, visitors learn that, while Monet’s landscapes were greatly admired by the Dutch, the figurative work of Edgar Degas was less appreciated.

Monet, a pupil of the Dutch artist Johan Jongkind, travelled more than once to the Netherlands. In 1871, he painted the Windmills Near Zaandam on an overcast day, and was delighted to make a sale. His Portrait of Miss Guurtje van de Stadt was acquired by a wealthy timber merchant and became the first impressionist work to enter a Dutch private collection. Returning for a last visit in 1886, Monet painted the more strident Tulip Fields Near the Hague, this time clearly with an eye for the market.

Early acquisitions

The first impressionist work to enter a public collection in the Netherlands was, perhaps unsurprisingly, another work by Monet. La Corniche Near Monaco (1884) was donated to the Rijksmuseum in 1900 by Baroness Van Lynden-Van Pallandt.

Painted at Cap Martin on the French Riviera, it is remarkable for the bold orange scar of road that bisects the canvas, leading the eye towards the brooding blue-and-violet cliffs in the distance. This warm Mediterranean scene is flanked by two Monet canvases evoking the cooler atmosphere of the Normandy coast: Cliffs Near Pourville (1882) and Fisherman’s Cottage, Varengeville (1882).

While Monet’s paintings are well-represented in the exhibition, along with oils by Pissarro, Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Gustave Caillebotte and others, some artists are represented only by works on paper. Astonishingly not a single oil painting by Degas has found itself into a Dutch collection, either private or public. Édouard Manet, too, is virtually absent from the exhibition.

Female artists were predictably underappreciated, or perhaps unavailable on the market. In recent years, the Van Gogh Museum and other Dutch institutions have tried to rectify that imbalance, though the market price for impressionism continues to rise, making new aquisitions a challenge.

The exhibition includes recent purchases of works by pioneering female impressionist painters Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt. And there are also several gems from private collections, such as an exquisite Little Bowl with Parsley by Eva Gonzalès and decorative plates by Marie Bracquemond.

The exhibition is aesthetically beautiful and intellectually compelling. It also delivers a sound environmental message, demonstrating that it is possible to create world-class exhibitions without flying works of art across the globe.

Those pictures that were once in Dutch hands but later left the country are reproduced virtually, and lamented in the final section of the exhibition, titled Boulevard of Broken Promises. It provides a fascinating and thought-provoking coda to the show.

Vive L’impressionnisme! Masterpieces from Dutch Collections will be on show at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam until January 26 2025.

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Frances Fowle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.