
It is literally the season of Van Gogh.
Louis Vuitton released an art range of leather goods in collaboration with artist, Jeff Koons, to celebrate humanity through the works of Da Vinci, Rubens, Degas and Van Gogh. In Melbourne, the Van Gogh and the Seasons exhibition is still buzzing as part of the NGV Winter Masterpieces collection. The artwork “Wheat Field with Cypresses” is featured in both Louis Vuitton and in this exhibition. It’s also one of my favorite works by Van Gogh so I stared at it for as long as I could before the crowds got in the way to get a photo of the painting.

I went to this exhibition twice, both on a Sunday afternoon just past lunchtime. The first time was during the first weekend of the exhibition aaaand that was a bad idea because it was too packed! I went again a couple of weeks later to which I kept telling myself “it wouldn’t be packed, it wouldn’t be packed”.
I was wrong.

However, this crowd was a lot less than the first one. Bear in mind that you might have to queue up twice if you happen to visit anytime soon – one for purchasing tickets and the other to get into the exhibition. I waited about half an hour to get in only because I pre-purchased my tickets.
Don’t scroll further if you don’t want exhibition spoilers.



You can tell from the very beginning Van Gogh was always inspired by looking at other artists’ artworks, which is also often the case for me. The Seasons exhibition starts off with a room full of prints he kept all his life as his go-to “bible” for inspiration. His biggest collection were Japanese prints dating back to the Edo period.
The only way to get to know Van Gogh is by reading his letters that were exchanged with his best friend and brother, Theo. Having prior knowledge of Van Gogh’s backstory was helpful and when seeing his works you begin to make connections to his life as told in his letters.
A massive introvert, mentally unstable individual living a dramatic life (much of it is due to his non existent interpersonal skills), I still think Van Gogh is a great guy even if he still was around today.