Philippe Dagen reviews Van Gogh + Munch at the Munch Museet, Oslo, (through September 6) and at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (through January 17, 2016).

Dagen writes: "Sometimes the connection seems so obvious it must be deliberate: Munch’s Starry Night of 1922-24 is a tribute to [Van Gogh's] Starry Night over the Rhone of 1888. There are striking similarities in some of their portraits too: the same composition, tight close-up view, disregard for any seductive charm, the same preference for tired faces, bony features with sunken eyes. Which brings us back to our starting point, the determination to strip bare the human condition, that of the painter with savage self-portraits and, just as brutally, that of his fellows."