Rarely Seen Van Gogh Painting on Display in Washington

Can you get to Washington, D.C.?  If you can, give yourself a big treat and check out the National Gallery.  In particular, you want to look for a painting that hasn't been seen in public since 1966 -- Vincent Van Gogh's “Green Wheat Fields, Auvers,” (1890.)  The Gallery also has eight other Van Goghs and lots of other visual goodies as well.

Although a calmer, less "busy" work than Van Gogh's best known paintings, this is still a subtly complex and pleasingly bright work.  Although some critics say that it reflected Van Gogh's more calmer state of mind, I have to disagree.  Although the fields of young wheat are happy and lively, the clouds above are not.  They are in the same swirling, turbulent patterns as seen in works like "The Starry Night."

So, where was this painting from 1966? In the home of superrich snob Paul Mellon.  Mellon died in 1980 and his wife in 1999, but his family clung onto the painting since then.  Hung over the fireplace.  The Mellons owned it since 1955 and loaned it to a museum once in 1966.  Before that, it was last shown in 1912 in Cologne, Germany.  The painting will now have a permanent new home where it belongs -- for the public to appreciate.  The chances of the painting being loaned to other museums around the world is possible, but no plans have been announced.