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Van Gogh To Kandinsky: Symbolist Landscape In Europe 1880-1910 Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh Until October 14 Reviewed by Cate Devine
The angst that sparked the Symbolist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is very "de nos jours", and we can all feel the artists' pain over such worries as scientific and technological advances, population shifts, the economy, man's place in the world and, dare I say it, nationalism. But more than that, the inclusion of lesser-known artists from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe reflects our very modern obsession with those parts of the world and the slow turn of our collective gaze outwards from the Mediterranean, and inwards from showy extroversion.
Hailed as the blockbuster of National Galleries of Scotland's programme for this year's Edinburgh International Festival, this exhibition comes direct from the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, where it attracted a record 400,000 visitors, and goes to Helsinki in November.
It is unusual in that we get to see 70 paintings by an astonishing 54 different landscape artists from such diverse countries as Poland, Finland, Italy, Spain and Lithuania, whose work strove to express the collective anxieties of the times.
Hung alongside weel-kent names such as Van Gogh, Gaugin, Whistler, Seurat, Munch and Mondrian, it's a rare opportunity to learn about the Symbolist movement, how far-reaching it was, and how by looking beyond direct representation of nature to the world of dreams, visions and spiritualism, as well as music and poetry, it is by nature elusive and difficult to define.
Simple arithmetic means some of the artists have only one work on show. If this gives a first impression of fragmentation and a lack of somewhere to focus the eye, it's worth sticking with it and getting with the vibe.
Give yourself time and the careful orchestration of the five large themed rooms here becomes apparent, gradually imparting a sense of cohesion and an understanding of the collegiate nature of the Symbolist aesthetic.
The landscape of the imagination is a revelation when you understand that it strove to represent a world in a state of perpetual flux. Part of the beauty of this show is that it purposely doesn't have a star exhibit.
Although the period covered – 1880 to 1910 – was a fruitful one for Scottish art, it is not represented here. On my visit I heard someone suggest that Henry and Hornel's The Druids might have fitted, as might Guthrie, Lavery, Melville, Crawhall, Walton, or even McTaggart.
But since much of their work was figurative or decorative, perhaps it did not fit the landscape painting remit of this exhibition; or maybe the Scottish art of the Symbolist period tended too much towards naturalism.
For those who seek it, there is a nod to our host country in Millais's misty Dew Drenched Furze, with its lyrical depiction of the sun as it dapples through a clearing on Perthshire's Murthly Estate.
Its juxtaposition with Prince Eugen of Sweden's darkly claustrophobic The Forest helps make a meaningful point about our uncertain journey though life.
The inclusion of Scots composer Craig Armstrong in the Galleries' first venture into iPad interaction – where you can put on headphones to listen to the music of Rachmaninov, Debussy or Sibelius while viewing some relevant paintings – is interesting.
His beautiful violin concerto Immer, played by the BBC SSO to accompany Van Gogh's Wheatfield With Reaper, playfully evokes the artist's imagined feverish brushstrokes while also conveying its haunting melancholy and a sense of futility.
Armstrong pays tribute to the "emotional truth" of the painting. The Scots writer John Burnside, whose novel Summer Of Drowning was heavily inspired by the Norwegian painter Harald Sohlberg, represented here by his deeply solitary, darkly blue Midsummer Night, will contribute a spoken piece in August.
From the Swiss artist Arnold Bocklin's mesmerising, silent images of solitary retreats, to Alexandre Calame's angry, stormy seascapes, and Väinö Blomstedt's clear pastoral views of the Finnish motherland, the mood becomes more sombre, and the predominant colour blue, as you progress from the Arcadia and Moods Of Nature rooms through to Silent Cities and Dreams And Visions. Blue is the hue that most clearly depicts that moment between light and darkness, and the spiritual theosophy of Symbolism.
Consequently, an all-pervading sense of silent melancholy is suffused throughout – although Jacek Malczewski's In The Dust Storm is lighter, but no less anguished, as its central figure depicts his native Poland being assailed by Russia. Whistler's mysterious and deadly still Nocturne: Grey And Silver has the optional iPad accompaniment of a recording of William Ernest Henley's heart-rending Under A Stagnant Sky, with its cry of O Death! O Change! O Time! and it sits well with his hauntingly nostalgic second Nocturne: St Marks's Square, Venice. Gallen-Kallela's super-still Lake Keitele and Munch's Winter Night are among the stand-out paintings here. Then there's Van Gogh's small but striking The Sower, seen in Scotland for the first time, which shows an apparently barren field and has biblical overtones.
A quirk of the layout of the galleries means that the last room, Towards Abstraction, which features Kandinsky, Mondrian, Signac and Angrand and others, is easy to miss. It's here that I found some of the most mood-enhancing pieces – particularly the small triptych Sparks I, II and III by the Lithuanian painter-composer Ciurlionis, who saw music in colour.
Depicting the progress of a train steaming through his native landscape, it's full of movement and music and life, and a charming contrast to the bolder, more abstract Kandinsky, whose Wagner-inspired Mountain and Cossacks allude to climbing mythical mountains and crossing mythical bridges.
Its contemplative nature makes this a slow-burn exhibition, and one that is truly of our times.
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