Experts Find Grasshopper Trapped In Van Gogh’s Painting
- 7 years ago
Experts examining Vincent van Gogh’s 'Olive Trees' found a buried treasure of sorts in its thick strokes. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri reports that there’s a grasshopper stuck in the painting.
Experts examining Vincent van Gogh's 'Olive Trees' found a buried treasure of sorts in its thick strokes.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri reports that there's a grasshopper stuck in the painting.
It was discovered during the museum's larger effort to more deeply research and produce a catalog highlighting 104 of its French works.
Though it was hoped that the insect could help efforts to assign a more accurate creation date to 'Olive Trees,' that did not come to pass.
The museum notes that Dr. Michael S. Engel, a University of Kansas paleo-entomologist, "observed that the thorax and abdomen of the grasshopper were missing and that…the grasshopper could not be used for more precise dating of the painting."
Notably, van Gogh did give advance warning that such inclusions were possible.
"But just go and sit outdoors, painting on the spot itself! Then all sorts of things like the following happen – I must have picked up a good hundred flies and more off the 4 canvases that you'll be getting," according to a letter the artist wrote to his brother in 1885.
Experts examining Vincent van Gogh's 'Olive Trees' found a buried treasure of sorts in its thick strokes.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri reports that there's a grasshopper stuck in the painting.
It was discovered during the museum's larger effort to more deeply research and produce a catalog highlighting 104 of its French works.
Though it was hoped that the insect could help efforts to assign a more accurate creation date to 'Olive Trees,' that did not come to pass.
The museum notes that Dr. Michael S. Engel, a University of Kansas paleo-entomologist, "observed that the thorax and abdomen of the grasshopper were missing and that…the grasshopper could not be used for more precise dating of the painting."
Notably, van Gogh did give advance warning that such inclusions were possible.
"But just go and sit outdoors, painting on the spot itself! Then all sorts of things like the following happen – I must have picked up a good hundred flies and more off the 4 canvases that you'll be getting," according to a letter the artist wrote to his brother in 1885.