Mystical Landscapes: Masterpieces from Monet, van Gogh and more at the AGO in Toronto

This October, the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto invites visitors to witness the spiritual journeys of some of the greatest artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Mystical Landscapes: Masterpieces from Monet, van Gogh and more explores the transcendental experiences of 36 world-renowned artists.

The decades bracketed by 1880 and 1930 introduced a surge of new technologies, social changes and scientific advances. Rapid urbanization was accompanied by improved methods of transportation and communication. Some artists were thrilled by the modern tempo while others rejected it, longing for a more innocent age. Many artists across Europe and North America proverbially communed with nature and within it found their personal mystical experiences. The result was some of the world’s most famous landscape painting. Van Gogh found solace in the starry skies over Arles. Monet found his own personal peace during the Great War at the side of his Giverny lily pond.

This major exhibition will feature over 100 seldom-lent paintings and works on paper. Mystical Landscapes: Masterpieces from Monet, van Gogh and more debuts in Toronto at the Frank Gehry-designed AGO, Oct. 22, 2016 and runs to Jan. 29, 2017, before opening at the Musée d’Orsay in the spring of 2017. Highlights include Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhone at Arles from 1888, which prompted the artist to write to his brother Theo about feeling “a tremendous need of —shall I say the word—religion…so I go outside at night to paint the stars”; Paul Gauguin’s bold Vision After the Sermon (aka Jacob Wrestling with the Angel), painted during an 1888 visit to coastal Brittany; and an example of Claude Monet’s ethereal Water Lilies (Nymphéas) from 1907. Also included in the exhibition are works by Whistler, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Munch and O’Keeffe.

Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night over the Rhone at Arles, 1888, Musee D’Orsay. © AGO Art Gallery of Ontario

Mystical Landscapes was conceived and developed by Katharine Lochnan, the AGO’s senior curator of international exhibitions, together with guest curators from Canada and the Musée d’Orsay.

For more information please visit here. The Art Gallery of Ontario is located at 317 Dundas Street in Toronto, Ontario. Mystical Landscapes: Masterpieces from Monet, van Gogh and more runs from October 22, 2016 to January 29, 2017. General adult admission is $19.50 CAD. The AGO is open daily except Mondays.