It’s the last weekend to see ‘Beyond Van Gogh’ in Scottsdale

The bold portraits, delicate flowers and swirling skyscapes of Vincent Van Gogh have graced the video walls of the Galleria Centre in Old Town Scottsdale since early October.

Over the months, thousands of people have visited, but now it’s time for the immersive experience to leave. The final day of “Beyond Van Gogh” will be Sunday, Jan. 4.

The experience takes place in three rooms. The lobby concession stand sells snacks and drinks before visitors begin their tour by reading a series of informational panels about the Dutch artist’s life and work.

“An exhibition about a renowned painter without the paintings themselves: an impossible task transformed into an incredible opportunity. The unlikely pairing of the digital and the classical allows us to dive into this world of paintings, to experience it from the inside. Through this play on scales and images, the usual becomes the improbable. This experience transcends the images, and ventures into the work itself,” reads one of the panels.

Once guests pass the lobby panels, they pass through a hallway illuminated with color-changing LED lights to arrive at the second room, where the letters and sketches of Van Gogh appear in black and white on large screens.

In the final room, the vibrant colors of Van Gogh’s work appear on the walls and the floor of a large space. Paintings such as “Starry Night,” “Wheatfield With Crows,” “Almond Blossoms” and the artist’s many self-portraits move and meld into one another to thrill the eye. When visitors have had their fill, they move, inevitably, into a gift shop filled with T-shirts, postcards and other souvenirs.

Is “Beyond Van Gogh” worth visiting? There’s a lot of discourse on the subject, including several articles that pan the experience and call it a “very expensive screensaver.” With its bold backdrops and quick-draw transitions (the website promises more than 300 paintings in about an hour), it’s certainly an activity that appeals to people looking for social media content or those with the attention span of a fruit fly.

Naysayers may sniff at it and say that pictures on screens can’t replicate the experience of standing in front of a real Van Gogh painting. And they’re right. But some people can’t afford to go see the real thing, and for a good number of visitors to “Beyond Van Gogh,” it might be the closest they’ll get to some of the world’s most famous art. And it’s awfully pretty. Bottom line: If you think you’ll like it, you’ll probably like it, so go see it before it leaves.

Timed tickets are on sale for the final weekend of “Beyond Van Gogh.” Entry times run 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday. Cost starts at $27.32 for adults on Friday and $41.74 on Saturday and Sunday. Discounted tickets for children, seniors and students are available.