Vincent van Gogh

This year is proving a good one for Symbolism. An international conference entitled ‘Redefining European Symbolism’ was held at the Musée d’Orsay in April, followed shortly afterwards by four days on ‘The Symbolist Movement: Its Origins and Consequences’ at the University of Illinois, in Springfield. A third conference is planned for October at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh to coincide with the exhibition Van Gogh to Kandinsky: Symbolist Landscape in Europe 1880–1910 (14 July–14 October); shown first at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam as Dreams of  Nature: Symbolism from Van Gogh to Kandinsky and concluding at the Ateneum Museum, Helsinki. Meanwhile, Australian Symbolism: The Art of Dreams has recently finished at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.