Portrait of Mlle. Hortense Valpinçon (c. 1871), by Edgar Degas.
I recently got to walk inside the Norton Museum and ask something I rarely get to ask: Where to the van Gogh and the Degas? It felt good.
I can understand why any museum that owns a masterpiece makes use of its bragging rights every change it gets and despite the local crowd’s tendency to take it for granted. Borrowing one, on the other hand, attracts a kind of appreciate spectator that is not taking any chances.
Having learned that the paintings actually hang on opposite sides and different floors of the museum, I headed toward Portrait of Mlle. Hortense Valpinçon, which is the nearest to the entrance.
In it, Edgar Degas captures the daughter of a childhood friend he visited frequently. Hortense is about 9 years old here. She is dressed mostly in white and sports a straw hat that fits her head so precisely it looks like a helmet. A table covered in a dark decorative cloth has been conveniently placed to allow her pose. The girl leans casually against it. She holds a piece of apple with her right hand; the hand Degas couldn’t decide how to draw, given the charcoal lines still visible.
Considering the rest of the scene is carefully executed and the composition calculated, it is highly improbable Degas simply forgot to erase those lines. He was in his 30s and his sight not an issue yet. Maybe he did not plan for this oil painting to be judged or seen by a wide audience. Perhaps he saw no reason why to cement such a young subject to the frame. Was he projecting his understanding of fleeting innocence? Despite her early age, the girl’s expression is sharp and wise. She has already begun to mature. Better to give the image an open-ending and, in doing so, leave room for growth and change.
Accompanying the Impressionist masterpiece (ca.1871) is a detail revealing the blue-and-white mattress ticking on which it was painted. It confirms Hortense’s account on how it came to be. It was acquired by The Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 1947 and it tells me I was wrong to think of Degas as too pleasant. He was not just the artist of dance rehearsals, tutus and pastels. Had there been a bench to sit on, I would have lingered longer to let this painting’s details continue to challenge everything I thought I knew about him.
The Poplars at Saint-Rémy (1889), by Vincent van Gogh.
With those pre-conceived ideas broken, I took my intact pre-conceived ideas of Vincent van Gogh to the third floor where a small painting of his made me smile right away. The fluidic landscape titled The Poplars at Saint-Rémy (Les peupliers sur la colline) carries his known signature: thick paint application, wave-like brushstrokes, gold and blues. I would say it was as if being reunited with an old friend, except that I had never seen this piece before.
After taking a seat, I began noticing how much the intense sky resembled a troubled ocean. I imagined its whites as waves approaching the rough edges of a coast, instead of clouds floating above green hills. In many ways, the painting reminded me of his self-portraits. Poplars is less stiff, but the orange touches on the trees, for instance, bring to mind the artist’s hair. The overall scene has a pulse of its own, a certain vitality.
In a letter to his brother, and number-one fan, Theo, van Gogh refers to the inspiration behind the 1889 picture: “I’d tell you that we are having some superb autumn days and that I’m taking advantage of them.” Most of his works have always appeared to me to have a melancholy autumn quality. They capture the end of something: a year, a flower’s life cycle, hope.
It might be my own stubborn projection of documented events in his life that makes this picture more dramatic than it actually is. After all, the two central tree figures could be interpreted as symbols of the stability and strength the artist occasionally enjoyed while at the Saint-Rémy institution. The year he spent there rewarded him with abundant creativity and led to many of his best-known works, including Starry Night.
But I cannot stand to lose van Gogh to happiness and I won’t hear about any recovery he achieved. Unlike Degas, I won’t admit any other notion of the artist. I’m sticking with the romantic idea of the tormented, misunderstood loner who sold only one piece in his life. I will continue to think of those bumpy brushstrokes as veins carrying a contained desperation. I will continue to hope none ever erupts and bleeds a single color unto the rest of the canvas.
Van Gogh’s Poplars is on view at the Norton Museum of Art until April 17; Degas’s Portrait is at the museum until May 15. Admission is $12 for adults, $5 for ages 13-21. Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays to Saturdays except Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays; closed Mondays. Admission for Palm Beach County residents is free every Saturday. On Saturday, Feb. 6, the museum closes at 3 p.m. to prepare for its annual gala. For more information, call 561-832-5196 or visit www.norton.org.