We must rescue Van Gogh from becoming a pop culture cliche

Loving Vincent is a corny new biopic made from 62,450 hack oil paintings in Van Gogh’s style – and is an insult to the human struggle in his original works

Vincent van Gogh is peculiarly cursed to be travestied, misunderstood and reduced to a kitsch parody of himself. Look at the art section in your local bookshop and you will find a glitzy new publication of his “lost” Arles drawings being heavily promoted even after the Van Gogh Museum denied the drawings in it are by Van Gogh at all. Now more fake Van Gogh is on its way, with the release of the trailer for Loving Vincent, a feature film about the artist that has been made by animating oil paintings that ape his style.

The makers of this film commissioned 62,450 oil paintings by 115 professional painters to use as frames in the film, which will include 94 of Van Gogh’s own paintings “integrated” into the animated flow of images.

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