For many 21st-century viewers,though,the experience of being alone with a painting is less nourishing. What am I looking at? How long should I stand here? What am I supposed to feel?
"Forget traditions of tiptoeing through unnervingly silent galleries and viewing paintings from afar,"instructs the introduction toVan Gogh Alive.
This exhibition at the Royal Hall of Industries at the Entertainment Quarter in Sydney's Moore Park takes these uncertainties out of the picture by taking the audience through a"large-scale,multisensory experience"in 45 minutes.
Splashed across the equivalent of 30 IMAX screens up to seven metres high and accompanied by a soundtrack of popular classical music,ranging from Vivaldi’sFour Seasons to theHarry Potter soundtrack,Van Gogh Alive tells the story of the Dutch master's life using images of 2000 sketches,drawings and paintings.
Each chapter has a short text introduction similar to what one would encounter in each room of a traditional exhibition,but here the similarities largely end,as the images appear in quick succession,juxtaposed with other atmospheric footage like crashing waves and fields of sunflowers.
Van Gogh’s iconic paintings are animated to include a moving view of the Paris skyline,falling cherry blossom petals and crows ominously taking flight from a field at the sound of a gunshot.