Favourite Paintings: 'Church at Auvers' by Vincent Van Gogh

One of my favourite paintings is 'Church at Auvers' by Vincent van Gogh. It's one of his biggies and was even the subject of a 'Dr Who' episode when aliens invaded the Earth and hid in the church. But that's not why it's a favourite.

As part of my art A-level at school in 1978 I had to do a copy of a master's painting for my portfolio and I chose this painting to copy. I'm not sure why I chose this particular painting, possibly because of the blue sky? I lost my copy of the painting many years ago but a print of it is on the wall in my living room as a treasured memory. The painting hangs in the Musee D'Orsay in Paris and I well remember my first viewing of it in 2003 and the tears flowed. For the painting or for my lost youth? I don't know, but probably both. Every time I've been to Paris since then includes a trip to D'Orsay and I seek out this painting. One day I might have to go to Auvers in person.

I don't really remember what else I had to do for the portfolio other than we had to do a life drawing and an original composition on a theme. I remember drawing my friend Helen who agree to pose for us in the classroom. She was long and thin and wore trousers and a jumpa for the session. My original composition was on the theme of 'gardens' and I remember painting barbed wire as thorns and taking almost an entire lesson trying to mix the right colours for barbed wire. I think I had flowers on top of the barbed wire (like roses) to add colour but I'll never know for certain. It's strange what sticks in your mind.

Anyway, here's 'Church at Auvers' by Van Gogh for your enjoyment.

Soutine, Modigliani and Cezanne - Portraits Exhibitions

It seems to be portraits season in London at the moment, with three major portraits exhibitions open at the same time: Soutine at the Courtauld, Modigliani at Tate Modern and Cezanne at the National Portrait Gallery. I've no idea why this is the year of the portrait (apparently) but it's nice to see the very different treatments of the portrait by three different artists who didn't live so far apart.

The Soutine exhibition is, as ever, rather bijou, using the usual two rooms at the top of the Courtauld Gallery. The price of entry to the exhibition is included in the general entry ticket so, as well as looking at the Soutines, you can see the rather impressive Courtauld collection as well (and don't forget the early Renaissance works on the ground floor that too many people seem to walk past - there are three Fra Angelico panels in there).

My abiding impression of the Soutine portraits is gorgeous colours and distorted bodies and faces. The portraits are of hotel and restaurant workers and, probably, some in domestic service, all the opposite of the type of people who usually have their portraits painted. Some seem to be humble whereas others swagger and you probably wouldn't want to meet them in a dark alley. One of my favourites was the narrow-faced and big eared pastry chef in his acres of uniform umpteen times too big for him, shrinking away from the artist and slightly concerned. Of course, all that white isn't necessarily white as you see all different colours smeared into the overalls. There are a few other pastry chef paintings, seemingly of different sitters but I liked this one.

Another painting I liked was this one of a hotel worker described as having different jobs (Soutine, apparently, rarely titled his paintings so dealers gave different names to them). There are actually four different painting of this bloke, two with hands on hips, one with hands lying flat on his thighs and one close-up. In each the facial features are distorted but he wears the same uniform. Apparently he was't a good sitter and got bored very quickly and started fidgeting. I like knowing things like that about portrait sitters - it helps to bring them alive. From the pose and expression I can well understand it in his case, too.

A much bigger exhibition is the series of portraits by Madiglioni at Tate Modern on the other side of the river from the Courtauld and a bit further downstream.

It was a very busy exhibition when I visited so I really need to go back again to get a closer look at the paintings. My overall impression was of a lack of eyes in any of the portraits - eyes left blank or painted in black but few depictions of eyes. There was a quote somewhere from Modigliani to the effect that he'd paint in the sitters eyes when he had seen his or her soul. That's an interesting supposition but I wonder whether he just found them difficult to portray in a non-mannered way so avoided the problem. I'd be tempted to do that.

There's a nice selection of paintings in a big exhibition, nudes and society women, workmen to gentlemen. A bit of this and a bit of that. There's even an opportunity to try out a virtual reality headset but I didn't bother because of the queue, maybe next time.

The extended and simplified shapes of bodies and features was a bit odd but eventually drew me in. What was missing - although I may have passed them due to the crowds - were early works before he developed his style that demonstrated that he actually was an excellent draughtsman and knew how to draw and paint 'properly', that would help us understand how he developed his own style. Or did he just launch his 'style' and start selling paintings that encouraged his to keep using the style.

In an odd way it's both a bit repelling and attractive at the same time, the elongated figures, faces and features, no real sense of proportion in many of the paintings and no clear rationale for what he chose to do. Does that matter? The further into the exhibition I went the more compelled I felt to look and appreciate, to wonder and to start making up stories about the sitters. It's worth taking a close look at the paintings, all with a high finish, but wonder why he chose an elongated nose and tiny eyes here or an exaggerated pose there?

I certainly want a second viewing and intend to go back when, hopefully it is less busy. I'll leave you with a self-portrait of the man himself with blacked out eyes.

An exhibition that I'd already seen in Paris was the Cezanne portraits exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. I first saw it at the Musee D'Orsay in Paris back in September, before it travelled to London. It heads off to Washington after London.

When I say i'd already seen this exhibition, that's not entirely true. What I should say is that I'd *most* of this exhibition before since it's not exactly the same - some of the paintings on show in Paris aren't on show here, and some are shown here that weren't on show in Paris. The most obvious are some rather cold paintings of the artists's son that I hadn't seen before.

The central paintings are, of course, here, including the boy in the red waistcoat that is, again, the poster for the exhibition. I have to say that, much as I love the D'Orsay, I preferred the layout of the paintings in the National Portrait Gallery which gave them more space and seemed less crowded despite being just as busy. On the other hand, the shop in the D'Orsay had more themed merchandise and cards than the National Portrait Gallery ( I notice such things).

Having done a painting course inbetweenseeing the exhibition for the first and second times, I looked at the paintings with a different eye, looking at the obvious brush strokes in some paintings and wondering what sort of brush he used and wondered why some brush-strokes go *that* way while others go *this* way. If you're interested in painting then this is an excellent exhibition to visit to get some ideas on technique as well as style.

If I could only go to one of these exhibitions then I'd definitely choose Cezanne - without him then the other two painters probably wouldn't have developed their distinctive styles. Well done Mt Cezanne and, especially, your long-suffering wife whom you kept on painting.

'Portraits by Cezanne' at Musee D'Orsay, Paris

On my recent trip to Paris I saw the 'Portraits by Cezanne' exhibition at Musee D'Orsay which opens at the National Portrait Gallery in London in October. That gives me another opportunity to see this excellent exhibition.

The exhibition starts off, as you'd expect, with early portraits as Cezanne found his own style. There were a few portraits of his uncle differentiated by wearing different hats, something he seems to do with his own later self-portraits, wearing hats of various shapes and colours. The consistent thing is the bushy beard, both for his uncle and himself. He's not the poster-boy for the exhibition however, that's reserved for 'Boy in the Red Waistcoat' which works really well with the splash of vivid red to liven up the colour palette.

To illustrate Cezanne's 'hats maketh the man' approach, I particularly liked his 'Self-portrait with a White Hat' with Cezanne looking straight out at the viewer wearing a white hat of sorts - or is it a bandanna tied around his head? Hair and beard are well kept and under control unlike in the self-portrait I'm more familiar with in the National Gallery in London. That painting is on loan to this exhibition and it was nice to see it again. I think I prefer the self-portrait with the white hat though, showing the artist in his prime, gazing out at the viewer in three-quarter pose, a man assured of himself and in control of his art.

As well as painting his own portrait, Cezanne painted his wife endlessly. There are half a dozen portraits of Madame Cezanne in the exhibition, the poor, long-suffering wife. I could well imagine her saying, 'ok, just another few minutes but I really need to make the dinner...' as Cezanne started yet another portrait.

Another portrait I particularly liked was 'Gustave Geffroy' from around 1896, with the good Monsieur Geffroy sitting in front of his book-case with books scattered on his desk. I suspect he's copying favourite passages into his notebook to keep them with him. The first thing I noticed were the orange-spines books in the book-case and wondered if Penguin paid Cezanne a royalty for inventing its trademark colour. That took me into the painting and could examine it with different eyes.

If you don't know the sitter or his/her history, then you need something to grab your attention to pull you into the painting, and those books did it for me. I assume the catalogue explains who he was and his relationship with Cezanne but, since the catalogue was in French then I have no idea. I look forward to reading about Gustave in the National Portrait Gallery catalogue.

Another portrait I loved was the one of Maggie Smith or, rather, 'Woman in Blue' to give the painting it's true title. As soon as I saw this one I thought of Maggie and still do. I can just see her sitting at a table waiting to be served a glass of sherry and sighing because of the wait. The slight downward glance and the angle of the hat, the plain blue jacket and dress against the colourful tablecloth all serve to give the painting a slight air of sadness, but I assume a momentary sadness. I'm sure she'll perk uo when the sherry is delivered.

It's a very simple portrait that cries out for a story to be draped around it and I hope the National Portrait Gallery version of the catalogue will do that. I want to know who she is and what was going on in her life at the time of the portrait.

One of the final portraits is another self-portrait by Monsieur Cezanne, this time as an old man whose beard has turned grey and he's gone all trendy by shaving it into a goatee beard. A large floppy beret tops off the portrait. The robust, beefy man of the earlier self-portraits has shrunk a bit with age but he's still using hats to cover his baldness. I looked at this portrait and thought old man and then wondered why he bothered to shave the sides of his beard? Was he still vain at that age? was it the fashion at the time? I don't know, but after all the earlier fully bearded portraits it did rather stand out for me.

I didn't realise that Cezanne was such a portraitist until this exhibition - I usually associate him in my head as a landscape artist because that's the genre I've mainly seen in his paintings. This exhibition shines a new light on him. That's always a good thing.

The exhibition opens at the National Portrait Gallery in London on 26 October and I'd certainly recommend it. I'll be going again to say 'bonjour' to Monsieur Cezanne.

'Sade - Attacking The Sun' - Musee D'Orsay, Paris

In Paris a couple of weeks ago, making the mandatory pilgrimage to Musee D'Orsay, and I stumbled on the Marquis de Sade exhibition on the ground floor. 'Ooer' I thought, and the poster by the entrance had a warning that the images might disturb or shock some people. Even more 'ooer'.

The first room was made up of highly packed video screens all showing different silent horror films that made it quite difficult to get inside and past the people clustering at each screen. Once through this room and the exhibition seemed strangely dark that I would classify as poor lighting rather than atmospheric (which it was probably meant to be). There was also an awful lot of reading on the walls, with quotes from Sade's writings on the walls and then text explaining them - even in English which is quite usual for a Paris exhibition.

It was a rather odd exhibition and I'm not quite sure what was meant to be shocking (although that might reflect on me rather than the exhibition). Yes there were paintings of a naked Judith killing Holofernes, lots of naked women generally but there are in any gallery, jagged modern paintings and the odd bit of sculpture, genitals on display in various states of arousal, blood and gore and so on. But this is 2014 and there are shocking paintings in every gallery, semi-naked and naked women everywhere, scenes and exhibitions of the horrors of war to commemorate 1914 and so on. The only difference seemed to be the dark lighting and the screeds of text on the walls.

It seemed to me that this was about the curator rather than Sade. It seemed to be saying 'look at the wide ranging influence of this brilliant thinker' but I just couldn't see it. It also seemed to go on forever with room after room of odd paintings and justifications for lumping them together in one exhibition. I sort of gave up around the middle of the exhibition when the curator reached the stage of '100 Days of Sodomy' and some strange quotes from Sade and a sign then said it was difficult to illustrate his writings at this point so here are some illustrations of dissected bodies that were popular at the time. What has a dissected body got to do with it? Stick to your themes, curator, or lose your audience.

I'm really not sure what this exhibition was meant to be about or what it was trying to tell me other than the curator has read all of Sade's writings and wants to show off. The only redeeming feature was this painting of 'War' by Rousseau that I've never seen before.