Collections and Critiques

"Poor Vincent" Van Gogh, who died an apparent failure in 1890, and whose paintings remained obscure for more than 30 years, is now sweeping away the barriers of New England conservatism with an exhibition of his modernistic work lent by the Kroeller-Mueller Foundation of Holland to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Van Gogh, a crazy, ecstatic, modernist-ahead-of-his-time who never received more than $85 for a painting during his lifetime, often starved himself so that be could buy his materials, to paint the pictures people thought worthless at the time. Recently one of these "worthless" canvases sold for $85,000.

Featuring the exhibition is a self portrait in the lower room of the museum. Bristling quince-colored hair, streaked with light, is brushed back en brosse into a stippled green background. The face has a yellow tinge, the eyes are disdainful and cold above an astonishing fiery red beard. It is not hard to imagine the possessor of such features racing helter-skelter through life and at last landing in an insane asylum.

Many of the other pictures making up the 60 canvases and 50 drawings, are bright landscapes seen by the artist through the narrow bars of his cell. Another landscape is "The Bridge at Arles", a striking example of how Van Gogh combined form with light and color in his works.

Museum officials believer that the exhibition, which is to run until the middle of March, will eclipse the attendance record set up by Whistler's "Mother", when that famous painting was lent by the Louvre in 1934. In the 18 days of that exhibition 103,613 people filled through the museum gates.