Someday, museums will run out of themes for packaging van Gogh exhibitions, and that’s fine. He’s one of those artists you just want to spend time with, no pretext needed, because he’s some kind of instant soul mate, startling, difficult, vulnerable, always willing to make so much of himself available to you.
Still, a theme, even a broad one, can be useful in directing us to aspects of an artist’s life and work we might not otherwise zero in on. Such is the case with “Van Gogh and Nature,” which opens on Sunday at the Clark Art Institute here and qualifies as one of the summer’s choice art attractions. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a special display of four van Goghs and advertises it as a show.
