R.I.P.

Vincent was denied a church funeral because of his suicide. Those were the days when it was considered a sin.
VVG had plenty of that. Sin.
His mother wished him dead well before his actual demise, and his father disowned him.
In the list of shared background that I have with VVG, there is the matter that I have my BA in the Bible and theology. One of the things in the van Gogh story that has been bugging me is the art critics who write the histories of the old boy have him renouncing his Christian faith.
I find no evidence of that. Yes, he most definitely strayed "off the reservation", and had unkind things to say about the church. He cohabits with, and consorts with, prostitutes. Then again, Hosea the prophet (remember, he has a whole book of the Bible) was married to one of those, you may remember.
But I see no renunciation of Christ. In fact, I see evidence to the contrary. Unlike myself, the old boy was a Calvinist. Strictly speaking, these guys think that one is "Once Saved, Always Saved". Which means, once you have been compelled, via Holy Election, to accept Christ, you will not stray, in spite of any evidence to the contrary. For you non-theologically minded, let's put it this way: if you were VG's father, a Calvinist minister, you would believe in the secure salvation of Vincent, no matter what he did after accepting Christ.
His parent's ungracious behavior towards him was understandable, in sociological terms. The first people you lose when you leave behind your sanity are your family. Turns out, more tragically, that many of Vincent's immediate family had dementia in their final days, due to the ravages of syphilis.
Of course, van Gogh is a father of Modernism. Yes, he exalted self, art, and nature. Certainly these things may crowd out the heart's room for God. I see nothing in that, however, to irrevocably overcome his place in the eternal. God knows, not I.
For the irreligious this may be a painful and seemingly unnecessary post. But I don't know how, without bald redaction, one can study the artist van Gogh without his faith, or art history (western) without Christ. It would seem to be impossible.
Certainly, it needs to be said, that the trend among VG's historians to strip him of his salvation is probably ill-informed, at best. I don't think I would be too surprised, standing on the other side, that I should meet the great artist, Vincent van Gogh.

It appears that others have covered this same ground, and agree with my thesis.
See:
This article by Cliff Edwards on VG's faith.
Also:
"Few images in modern art have so captured the attention of the public as Van Gogh's Starry Night, a painting that reveals all the light and glory hidden in an ordinary evening sky. In this very readable study of Van Gogh, essentially a spiritual biography, Kathleen Erickson explores the intense spirituality of the painter, from his early religious training and evangelical missionary work to the crisis that occurred when the church rejected his more radical way of following Christ. Erickson argues (against many Van Gogh scholars) that the artist's mature work reflects not a rejection of Christ so much as a rejection of a dogmatic church, seeing instead in the famous images of his art a profound connection to Christian symbols. Throughout, she helps us to discover the source of the power in Van Gogh's stars and sunflowers." --Doug Thorpe in this review of At Eternity's Gate: The Spiritual Vision of Vincent van Gogh.
From Publisher's Weekly:
"Erickson's account of the spiritual dimensions of van Gogh's work is an important corrective to two widespread assumptions: first, that his background was theologically Calvinist; second, that he abandoned religion when he began his professional career as an artist. Drawing extensively on van Gogh's correspondence, Erickson argues convincingly that the so-called Groningen school?(sic) more Arminian than Calvinist?was the foundation for van Gogh's religious outlook and that his abandonment of institutional Christianity (precipitated by disillusionment with his uncle and theological mentor, Johannes Paulus Stricker) was not so much an abandonment of religion as a move to synthesize Christianity and modernity via mysticism. Her discussion of van Gogh's late work is particularly compelling in this regard. Erickson's diagnostic discussion of van Gogh's mental illness is intriguing, though such extended discussion of whether he was epileptic, bipolar, schizophrenic or a combination is more of a distraction than a contribution to artistic or religious appreciation of his work. This work is a lucid and accessible contribution to understanding the religious character of van Gogh's artistic vision."
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. (Pasted from Amazon)
I won't argue the Arminian vs. Calvinist parts, here.

Note: now I still need to post regarding the lessons I learned by "seeing" VG's art, and producing a work after him.

No Blue Without Yellow

It seems that Emile Bernard, van Gogh's pen-pal, was soon to cross the Mediterranean to North Africa, to serve with Lieutenant Milliet in the French Army. VG was waxing on, artist to artist, about perceived local color.
"What I should like to find out is the effect of an intenser blue in the sky. Fromentin and Gérôme see the soil of the South as colourless, and a lot of people see it like that. My God, yes, if you take some sand in your hand, if you look at it closely, and also water, and also air, they are all colourless, looked at in this way. There is no blue without yellow and without orange, and if you put in blue, then you must put in yellow, and orange too, mustn't you?"
The compliment was the thing to our man van Gogh.

Van Gogh Book Review

Vincent and I consult along the banks of the Seine

"Well, old boy, this Gayford book, The Yellow House, was a cracking good read," says I to the artist's apparition.
"Hharumphh," he offers. Perhaps that nasty gunshot wound to the chest is giving him pains. Perhaps that French waitress hasn't brought his cappuccino quick enough.
And there we have the heart of the problem with these books about the great artist! They attempt to interpret him through various lenses. Who can really guess his intent in a given work of art?
Gayford, whose research and scholarship is second only to those who have compiled and catalogued the complete works of VG, has written much that I like, and much that I argue with.
Do you ever argue with authors as you read their books? I hope so. Critical thought is an essential part of learning.
Gayford proposes that VG's mania, which is thought by some to have been bi-polar disorder (manic depression), is essential to the outcome of his paintings. But, he merely lists a few other artists, authors and composers who have suffered from this disease, without any example or research showing it's effects upon their art.
I think he needs to rule out whether or not any of these afflicted men would have achieved the same levels either without the mania, or with suppression of the mania via treatment. That's a tall order, I know.
Van Gogh's work is unique in history, and quite unrepeatable. No one else will ever jump start the Modernist movement, since that's "in the can", so to speak. But, the level of transformation wrought by the Dutchman's art, such as influencing a score of follow-on movements, opening the way for greater abstraction in art, and for permission to focus more on pure color than ever before, is his mantle alone.
His great influence on art is a ladder of coherence, rather than a byproduct of euphoria.
Of course, his personal story is more dramatic, I think, than any other artist one can think of. It has it's effect on the public's appreciation of him, and it even stereotypes all artists in some rather unattractive ways. But, his posterity is more a matter of the acceptance of his works by the critical art world, his peerage, and the market's raging desire to collect his art. That continues to this day. I dare say that if you found a van Gogh at a garage sale, you would probably not stop at the Antiques Road Show for an appraisal. You'd make a beeline for Christie's or Sotheby's!
I will be plowing through the Complete Works, now, in search of more data on this enigmatic artist. But, I would encourage everyone with a personal interest to look into van Gogh's letters, which are available on the web here. Why not use his own words to tell the story of his art?

Van Gogh Sketches

All drawings, Vincent van Gogh.

Building in Eindhoven (The “Weigh House”), Neunen, Feb., 1885

Snowy Yard, The Hague, Mar., 1883

Garden in the Snow, Neunen, Feb., 1885

Oxcart in the Snow, Neunen, Aug., 1884

Old Man Drinking Coffee, The Hague, Nov., 1882

Five Men and a Child in the Snow, The Hague, March, 1883

Edge of a Wood, Etten, July, 1881

Dance Hall, Neunen, Dec 1888


I've decided to begin my van Gogh project participation by studying some of his sketches. I post a few of my favorites here.
I chose these for the good figure works, and some for the addition of Conte, or colored chalks, and others for the representation of snow. I'll be doing a few snow scenes as well. I tried to stay with graphite or charcoal works, here. One of them may be reed pen, but my sources don't say.
Before I could commit myself to this van Gogh inspired project, I had to clean up my old studio space , which is in the house. It had been half way moved out to my new 12' x 60' studio, which is a surplused house trailer. It is halfway remodeled, and sans electricity.
So, now that I am re-established in my old studio space, I am ready to go with the new works. I will begin with drawing, as it was the foundation of Vincent's work. He almost always worked from life, rather than memory or reproductions. He did do a little of the latter, especially to copy his own studies, or the etchings of other artists that he admired. He was much influenced by Jean-Francois Millet (French, 1814-1875) and Harmenszoon van Rijn Rembrandt (Dutch, 1606 - 1669), who were both good draftsmen.
I seldom work from life nowadays, although I have done much of it in the past. My Colorist American Landscapes are studio works, from the imagination or removed memory. I noticed that for many of the others in this project, the van Gogh study will be a move away from realism. For, me, it will be a move toward realism.
So, I will be drawing from life, as van Gogh did. He not only didn't have the CRT or Photoshop, he really didn't even have the photograph. Photography was new in his day; it represented a challenge to the ageless pursuit of fine art, and what is more I understand that he disliked the evil photo. I share that opinion.
Anyway, I think that it will be hard for one to gain his perspective without going outside, or at least setting up a still life. I will finish the project with painting, however.
Then, also to get close to the keener's (*) motifs, I want to choose the same subjects. Sunflowers, check. Wheat fields, got 'em.. Orchards, check. Marine climate, check. Maritime subjects, check. Sunlight, check-er-rooni. Self for portraits, check.
Wish me luck!

Here are some links that I don't think I saw on blogs of other artists doing this VG project:

Unabridged Letters by or to Vincent van Gogh
http://webexhibits.org/vangogh/
Van Gogh at Etten. Interesting and broad based web site.
http://library.thinkquest.org/C001734/index.html

(*) "Keener" is defined in urban slang as a nerd or eager-beaver. But, I am using it in it's old school definition of one who is keen-edged, knowledgeable; also the Irish give the keener tragic substance.

Van Gogh Project; VG Speaks!

"You are doing vwhut?"
"Achkk! A vfan Gchock prawgekt? Even I don't know vhut my next project vill be. How can you pretend to know ?!"
"Vell, my adfice to you is to remember the colour und ze gesture. Yes, the colour iz ze meanink! Vifout zis, you will not have done a van Gogh! With the drawing, remember the gesture."

Editor's note: The good folks at Fine Line Artists are doing a project for February where each artist will study van Gogh, and produce a work influenced by their discoveries. They will be posting their progress as they go, and have opened the project for others to participate. I will be doing my project along with them, as my conversation with Vincent continues as well.
See this blog soon to see how I will have narrowed my plan down to a digestible chunk. Candidates are to do a plein air (on sight or outdoor artwork) or a portrait.

Content, Subject and Modern Art

Still Life: Vase with Fourteen Sunflowers, 1888, 93 x 73cm. Vincent van Gogh.

I find much of my Yellow House book very interesting. I am happy to know, for some reason, what I will find if I follow the stairs down from the famous bedroom, and enter the little studio in the front. Will I exit the house, turn right and buy some vegetables at the grocery next door? Or, will I turn left, left again at the corner and walk the few hundred yards to the railway trestle? I will spare you the sordid details of what I pass on the left before I get to the railway!

But, I find it tedious to know what people think are the symbols behind the subjects of our artists' works. If VVG wrote the meanings in a letter to Theo, fine - then that is the meaning.

Otherwise, I am more interested in the formal elements of these wonderful paintings. Look at the yellow on yellow color composition! The palette knife impastos of paint upon paint! VVG said that he chose color as his motive in art, and that is a big clue.

Now, we descend into the darker times of van Gogh's days in Arles with Gauguin. Will I be able to face the dementia that poor VVG exhibited, and that Paul Gauguin tolerated only for so long? What will it say to me? Will we discover a key to his genius, or will we simply "cross the street" to avoid the old boy?

Stay tuned, art fans. Same van Gogh channel; same van Gogh time...

External Evidence of van Gogh's Appearance

Vincent in Conversation with Felix Feneon, Paris 1888. Lucien Pissarro (1863-1944).



Here is a photo of a street scene in Paris showing Emile Bernard facing, and the famous keener's back to us. Darn!


This is very fresh, given our subject of the collaboration in the Yellow House:
Vincent at the easel, Paul Gauguin, 1888.

Toulouse-Lautrec de Henri has given us this very nice drawing of van Gogh. Ritratto di Vincent van Gogh, 1887. It shares, I think, the same pigments VVG used in his self portrait shown in my last post. It is also a pastel, which Lautrec was known to have used.

Vincent the Vile

van Gogh, 1889












If any of us, I think surely myself, were to meet in 1888 poor Vincent van Gogh on the street, I dare say we would cross to the other side to avoid the old boy!

He is described by many as odoriferous, ugly and offensive. I did not know, before, that his manner of speech and his quirky gestures were as odd as described in Martin Gayford's book, The Yellow House… (See a full review of the book in the Independent UK here.)

I did come upon a story in Yellow House that I personally remember reading in a newspaper way back in 1988. It concerns an Arlesienne lady, a centenarian, who was introduced to, and remembered quite vividly, the quirky Dutch painter who used to buy canvas at her husband-to-be's fabric shop. Her name was Jeanne Calment, and she considered van Gogh uncomely, ungracious, impolite, and bad smelling.

Too bad she never sat for a portrait, though. It wouldn't have hurt her posterity at all to have been able to pass on a few million francs to her family.

This story gets me. For the youth among my gentle readers, the year 1988 seems ancient history, I'm sure. But to those of us with a little gray on the noggin, it's just the same as yesterday. And here was someone with a personal memory of the great painter ! No wonder I feel that his art is as fresh today as it ever was.

Postmortem, his profile in the art world grew with time, as exhibits were hung in Paris, Brussels, Antwerp and The Hague. A large retrospective (I think I read @ 30 works) was mounted in Paris in 1901, and then again in 1905. Other shows followed, including New York, in 1913 and Berlin, in 1914.

Today, there is enough on van Gogh in the cyber world to almost make Elvis jealous (VVG: 4.6 million google entries; Elvis Presley: 4.7 million). His art has sold for an excess of 82 million dollars outside of the already out-of-this-world auction market for his art.

You may think that it's too bad that he never saw any of this money. On the other hand, he did see every work as it came off the easel. Who has the last laugh, there?

Paul Gauguin's Vision of the Sermon

Vision of the Sermon, Gauguin 1888

This painting, of Breton women observing
Jacob wrestling the angel, was one of the works that fed the collaboration at the yellow house.

The flat plane of red, with figures sort of floating about, the use of pure colors, and the use of imagination are breakthroughs evidenced in this work, and others from this time.

Van Gogh and Gauguin, and also Emile Bernard by postal connections, were creating one the greatest "synergies" of artistic change in history at this "Studio of the South". Read some interesting history (The Art Institute of Chicago) and criticism (author not named, Telegraph U.K.) here and here.


Arles, France residence of Gauguin and van Gogh

What is the Correct Tone of the Mountains?

Starry Night, van Gogh, 1889
"That is a little what Bernard and Gauguin feel, they do not ask the correct shape of a tree at all, but they insist absolutely that one can say if the shape is round or square - and my word, they are right, exasperated as they are by certain people's photographic and empty perfection.

Certainly they will not ask the correct tone of the mountains, but they will say: In the Name of God, the mountains were blue, were they? Then chuck on some blue and don't go telling me that it was a blue rather like this or that, it was blue, wasn't it? Good - make them blue and it's enough!

Gauguin is sometimes like a genius when he explains this, but as for the genius Gauguin has, he is very timid about showing it, and it is touching the way he likes to say something really useful to the young. How strange he is all the same."

van Gogh, 1889

Postscript: One has to like Emile Bernard, who got kicked out of art school in Paris for insubordination!

Bump! Originality

Gauguin at His Easel, 1885
Self Portrait

There is a good conversation going on my previous post about originality.
In my "Yellow House" book, on Gauguin and VVG, the author is calling the style of Cezanne the "default" style of Gauguin.
Ouch!

The Yellow House, Van Gogh and Gauguin

Garden in the Snow, 1885

My book arrived yesterday from Amazon. It is The Yellow House, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent weeks in Arles, by Martin Gayford.

It is a funny thing, too. I enjoyed trying to write something original about the artist Bob Dylan, and giving my own opinions achieves that, I think. As a result, I was searching for someone else to write about, this time a visual artist. Van Gogh came to mind, and I had posted these "originality" posts, and here comes my book in the mail. Synchronicity.

The book treats you to every detail of the situation involving a moment and a place in time. An event that informs western art forever. What was their arrangement? What would you find if you turned left out the front door of the yellow house, and went one door? One mile?

What did VVG eat for breakfast? (Coffee, bread and butter)

If this kind of minutia drives you crazy, wait til we get to Van Gogh's unraveling! Don't worry, I shall treat you, dear reader, to just the salient points.

Well, maybe a few trivialities, just for spice.

Here's one I found entertaining. Ever wonder how to pronounce Van Gogh? If you aren't Dutch, just forget it. On that, I was in Italy last year, bumping along a high road with my host, a Dutchman named Lorenzo. Of course, I asked him to pronounce "Van Gogh". Go here to hear it for yourself.

I just poured myself a cup of French press coffee. VVG was addicted to the stuff. Not me, though. I can quit any time I like. I just don't feel like quiting...

Back to my book, now.

Hard Life of Van Gogh

There used to be a saying in the USA back in the eighties. It went something like: "It's hard to get happy after (fill in the blanks)".
I read a well put together brief on Vincent van Gogh's life the other day. It's hard to "get happy" after reading the very tragic outline of his last few years, which culminated in his taking of his own life, on July 29th, 1890.
Then, after a while, I look (really look!) at his wonderful colorist art. Then, I am able to see the world-changing legacy that he left us. Intensified color, without losing sight of his subject. Rich, high chroma yellows. Dark, deep blues.
Bravo, Vincent! You changed the art world's use of color more than anyone else in modern times.

Van Gogh and Gauguin

Bump!
I decided to revisit this VG portrait, because of the similarity to the portrait that his roomie did. Also, recall this from a previous post.

Portrait of the postman
Joseph Roulin,
Vincent Van Gogh.
1888, o/c 65 x54 cm.

Van Gogh News

Check out this item over at Artdaily. Guess I have company in my love for the Dutch artist's work.

Van Gogh News

Check out this item over at Artdaily. Guess I have company in my love for the Dutch artist's work.

Portrait of the postman
Joseph Roulin,
Vincent Van Gogh.
1888, o/c 65 x 54 cm.

The Yellow House (in Arles)

Can you say,
"synergy"?

Quote:

“Oh yes! He loved yellow, did good Vincent... When the two of us were together in Arles, both of us insane, and constantly at war over beautiful colors, I adored red; where could I find a perfect vermilion?”

Gauguin (re: Van Gogh)
1848-1903

http://www.amazon.com/

Yellow-House-Gauguin-Turbulent-Weeks/dp/0316769010

Answer : Degas

The question was put yesterday in the "This also made the cut" post, regarding the impressionist who turned to photography late in life.

Edgar Degas, the patron saint of pastel artists, who never married, and lived into his eighties, is the answer.

My favorite thing that he said is something like: I wish I had enough money to buy back all of my previous works.