Friday, 23 December 2011
Today is an appropriate day to talk about Vincent Van Gogh.
“Why is today an appropriate day to talk about Van Gogh?” you ask. “Is it his birthday?”
No, it’s not.
“Is it the anniversary of his death?”
Again, nope.
“Is it the anniversary of when he sold his first painting?”
You’re wrong again. Please, just stop guessing, for Christ’s sake, and let me get on with this blog post.
My first experience with Van Gogh was, surprisingly, through song. My Dad (who seemed to own every song to hit the pop charts between 1955 and 1980) had this one record with a song that began “Starry starry night.” I thought that was the title of the song for about 20 years. It’s not. The title of the song is “Vincent,” and here it is, coupled with images of Van Gogh’s work:
I didn’t know what the song was about back then, and it wasn’t until one day when I was seven years old, and attending 2nd Grade at Savage Elementary School (yeah, that’s really what it was called), that I connected the song to the artist.
On that day, a woman came in to our classroom. She was the curator of a local art museum, I believe, and she brought with her two paintings (or copies of painting). She set the first one up onto an easel. It was completely covered with tag board. But she had cut two holes out of the tag board and, before revealing the entire work, she uncovered one of the holes. The opening revealed a bright, swirling disk of light.
“What time of day do you think it is in this painting?” she asked the class.
Some upstart raised her hand and said it was day time.
But then the curator opened up the other cut-out, and revealed the moon, and a darker portion of the painting. There was audible murmuring in the classroom as we all tried to figure out how a painting could simultaneously depict night and day.
After letting us stew for a minute, she revealed the entire painting.
The entire painting.
I was amazed. Instantly, I gasped at its beauty and I tried reconstructing the tag board covering in my mind, trying to figure out how two such dissimilar plays of light could appear in the same work.
The woman told us the name of the painting, and this led me to raise my hand and ask a question: “Is that the painting they’re talking about in that one song ‘Starry Starry Night’?” I inquired.
Needless to say, I was rebuked for daring to couple one of the most beautiful works of art with a pop song. I guess making connections like that is bad.
For years after that, I felt a special affinity for that painting. When I was 13 years old, I convinced my parents to purchase a book of art history for me. They frowned on the idea, ’cause, you know, there was nudes in it, but I prevailed. Despite strong competition, reading the entire book led me to the conclusion that Starry Night was the most beautiful painting of all time.
Mostly, I suppose, I loved the color. It wasn’t the assaulting palette of Warhol, yet it still rose above the depressing browns and blacks of Da Vinci. I even purchased a neck tie that depicted Starry Night; it was the only tie I owned that straddled the line between fun enough for work and serious enough for the über-conservative dress code of the Watchtower Society. Though I have greatly trimmed back the ties in my collection, I still own this one and, indeed, it’s the tie my wife and I use year after year when we take a photo of Owen on his birthday.
In time, I realized many Van Gogh works were similarly striking. For a time, my wife and I displayed Van Gogh reproductions on our living room wall. And when, in 2002, I visited the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, I considered my brief moment face-to-face with Van Gogh’s Olive Trees as the highlight of the trip. More than that, it was one of those times when I felt in the company of greatness – like when I attended a Brian Wilson concert – and I was humbled to think that I am of the same species as such an amazing talent.
Van Gogh had the dual problems of mental illness and living in the 19th century. During the 19th century, mental health treatment was…let’s see, how can I put this?…shitty. Had he lived now, Van Gogh likely would have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Or depression. Or OCD. Or epilepsy. Or hypergraphia. Or maybe all of the above. He was a troubled man who took solace in his work.
One hundred and twenty-three years ago today, a deeply disturbed Van Gogh cut off part of his right ear and gave it to a prostitute. Having the wherewithal to know how sick he was, Van Gogh had the presence of mind to wrap his bleeding head in bandages and later checked himself into a clinic. Less than two years later, the 37 year-old Van Gogh was dead, probably by his own hands.
Van Gogh’s act of passion is an easy metaphor. My friend Ryan once wrote a song “My ____ is Van Gogh,” in which the protagonist continually finds severed pinnas (such as in his mailbox) and concludes that various people in his life (such as the mailman) are a disguised Van Gogh. It’s also an easy target – even Gary Larson used Van Gogh’s ear in a Far Side panel: in an uncharacteristically unfunny comic, a large sculpture of an ear is shown on display outside a school, and the caption notes that it is the Van Gogh school of art.
Unlike Film and books, I don’t consider myself a painting connoisseur. So, I’m sorry I lack the training and metrics to properly describe the beauty of Van Gogh’s work. Regardless, it’s too bad. Had Van Gogh received the help and treatment he so sorely needed, he may have lived another 70 years and created another thousand works. Or maybe he would’ve only lived another week. We don’t know. We’ll never know. We’re all worse for it. But at least we can take solace in his work.