Van Gogh’s 'Noon: Rest from Work' to be exhibited in Korea

To celebrate the 130th year of diplomatic ties between Korea and France, the Hangaram Art Museum at Seoul Arts Center will hold an exhibition with the Musée d'Orsay in France until March 5 next year.

It will exhibit masterpieces held by the French Museum, which marks the 30th anniversary this year, including Jean-Francoise Millet’s “The Gleaners,” and Vincent van Gogh's “Noon – Rest from Work.” A total of some 130 paintings are the masterpieces created by great European painters in the 19th century. They include Camille Pissarro, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, and Eugene Delacroix.

In 1866, 24 years before Van Gogh finished “Noon – Rest from Work,” Millet drew a namesake sketch with conte crayons and pastels on paper. While the two artworks showing a man and a woman taking a nap on a stack of straws have almost the same composition, posture of the figures, and location of subject matters, they have a mirror image. Van Gogh is known to have copied other artists after he was hospitalized in 1889, but there are different views over how he got to access Millet’s work.

“Since the opening of the museum in 1986, the Musee d’Orsey has never sent ‘Noon – Rest from Work,’ a masterpiece that van Gogh completed six months before his death, to an area outside Europe for the preservation and management of the piece," a source from Seoul Arts Center said. "It made a very unusual decision for the exhibition in Korea.”

The exhibition will also include Millet’s "Shepherdess with Her Flock" (1857), Gauguin’s "Breton Peasant Women" (1894), Auguste Renoir’s "Girls at the Piano" (1892) and Emile Bernard’s "The Rest of the Shepherd" (1908). You can see the real paintings that you used to see from visual media or art books and see the popular trend of paintings including romanticism, realism, impressionism, naturalism and symbolism.

Taek Kyoon Sohn sohn@donga.com