64. Vincent van Gogh, The Rocks
At first, you might think this isn’t the most spectacular Van Gogh painting. Its colors are muted, and it doesn’t have the visual pyrotechnics of some of his most famous works. Except that it does. There’s plenty of razzle-dazzle in the squiggles and dots of those rocks and bushes, in the tree that should be the star of the show but isn’t. Most of all—holy cow—look at that sky! All those pale, shifting colors, that surprising peach up top. Very few artists are good from three inches and thirty feet both. Van Gogh nails it from any distance.
To receive a weekly summary of the MFAH 100 series rather than a daily email, please subscribe on my Substack blog The Impatient Reader.