"Van Gogh never did a blue blob"
November 8 2016
Picture: New York Post
A US writer has claimed that one of Van Gogh's most famous pictures, 'Wheat Field with Cypresses' (Metropolitan Museum) in fact a fake. Says the New York Post:
James Grundvig’s new book, “Breaking van Gogh,” claims the painting titled Wheat Field with Cypresses was really made in the late 1800s by Emile Schuffenecker, “a third-level impressionist painter” and suspected forger.
Look carefully at the canvas in Gallery 822 on the Met’s second floor, and you can see some of the signs of a forgery, Grundvig says.
One is a discordant blob of blue paint on the mountain in the background. “That is not the kind of mistake van Gogh would make,” said Grundvig. “The blue blob is very egregious. Van Gogh never did a blue blob.”
The Met has gamely played along and pointed out all the evidence in favour of the picture, including the fact that it is painted on the same bolt of canvas as many of his other pictures.
