This spring, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa will host a new touring exhibition, Van Gogh: Up Close, centered around the artist’s paintings of nature, and featuring several of his most popular works, including Iris, Sunflowers and Wheat Field.
The exhibit – which will arrive in Ottawa on May 25, 2012 and run until September 3 – illustrates how the painter experimented with depth of field and focus and shows that far from being an undisciplined painter, Van Gogh was very aware of art history and was striving to break new ground with his work.
Van Gogh: Up Close includes 45 paintings from public and private galleries around the world, giving the public a rare chance to see some of his work that is seldom on display.
The pieces included in the exhibit span his career, beginning with his work in Paris and continuing through to the end of his life in 1890, when the 37-year-old artist shot himself in a wheat field where he’d been painting.