Van Gogh - The Master after The Master! - "The sadness will last forever"

 

Newgate Prison Exercise Yard, Gustave Doré

Engraving from London, a Pilgrimage, by Gustave Doré and Blanchard Jerrold, 1872. 

Prisoners' Round, also known as 'The Prisoners' Round', or Prisoners Exercising, or Penitentiary, is a February 1890 painting by Vincent Van Gogh  (after Gustave Doré) The late work was painted at Saint-Paul Asylum in Saint-Rémy when Vincent was chronically depressed probably from a Dutch magazine in the Asylum. A few months later in the summer Vincent shot himself just below the heart and though he lingered for two days he must have been in intense pain and his last words to his brother Theo who wrote to their sister Elisabeth 'Lies' reporting that Vincent had said

"La tristesse durera toujours" 

BEYOND ART

I have always been fascinated by aspects around art whether it be portraits of artist, biographical details, pictures from family snapshots where they lived, people they loved, as they were/are in photos and self portraits but also images of scenes as they are now from their most famous paintings also. Where artists lived and their work in landscape seen in the real. One such is the wonderful work of Dutch photo artist Karin Borghout whose website dedicated to the work of Vincent Van Gogh is full of such things some examples follow below

Vincent Was Here - Karin Borghouts

So a view we all know from Van Gogh's eating but taken as a photo in situ just fascinates despite cars and contemporary detail. But there are works reconstructed from Vincent's oeuvre that take the smaller subjects as it were and the artist has reconstructed these also

I mean just look at this . . . . . beautiful work just from one of Vincents flower vase paintings

Again another masterful flower study reconstructed 

Vincent's actual bedroom

Karin Borghout's book - 'Vincent was Here' available here

"Sien"

Vincent’s only live-in girlfriend, 'Sien' committed suicide in 1904 by jumping into a river, just as she had told him she would do (21 years earlier). 

Clasina (Sien) Maria Hoornik

Sien was Van Gogh's only life in lover and partner who he really wanted to wed. Indeed she wanted to marry him also but Vincent's family and benefactors refused to countenance such an arrangement. 
Clasina Hoornik had been one of ten children and when her father died they tried to augment their brother's meagre income selling chairs as cleaners and general labourers, seamstresses and the like. Inevitably for the period 'Sien' became a prostitute and gave birth to four children as a result by the time she was in her early thirties. She had been pregnant when she took up with Vincent and he first began drawing her. There is no doubt Vincent loved her and she him but he contracted gonorrhoea from her and was hospitalised as a result and Theo, Vincent's brother and principal benefactor, was furious and threatened, along with his influence upon his other benefactors, to withdraw their financial support. Their brief relationship and affair de couer came to a tragic end.

Van Gogh, Woman with cigar (Sien) seated near the Stove (April 1882)
Courtesy of Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo.

PICASSO 

Pablo Picasso - Portrait of Dora Maar

portrait of the real Dora Maar artist photographer and muse - Man Ray

A recent biographic programme on TV [Picasso's Last Stand- BBC] put me back in touch with the work and life of Picasso. Now Picasso is one of those figures in art that I tended to take for granted. A force of nature he is an undoubted master of his art. Towards the end of his  life he was listed as being extremely wealthy largely because of how many Picasso's he owned!! His legendary relationships with the opposite sex are a challenge but with much interview material with his biographer John Richardson (by then in his 90's) Picasso came over as extremely human, full of doubt at times and sudden flashes of lack of self confidence. Threatened at times by the Abstract Expressionism of America he began to falter in his style and fell ill. By the time he recovered he suddenly entered an Indian Summer of his production and went to his grave having produced more large scale works and in my view some of his best work. All phases of his life; the Rose period, the Blue period, the Cubist period etc etc all went to reaffirm what I had always know and always admired, he simply was 'PICASSO' the unique and masterful artist without peer or equal. 

Oh and for those smart-alecs who always claim the features are all in the wrong place and joke about Picasso's distorted views don't assume he couldn't draw.

Portrait of La Scala master of ballet, 1925, Pablo Picasso

perhaps my favourite Picasso - 'Guernica' - in response to the Spanish Civil War

rolling out the finished work

Richardson revealed an endearing detail which was that Pablo carried with him the news clipping of Van Gogh's death in his wallet. A lifelong admirer it would seem, one associates Picasso as beyond such things or rather singular in his ego driven status. Not someone perhaps given to admire the work of others. Nothing could be further from the truth. A deeply sensitive man sometimes vulnerable always loving and caring towards others but consumed by the desire to create.

Vincent - Self Portrait

Van Gogh - the last painting

Another in an occasional series of pictures found wandering t'interweb!!

Vincent Van Gogh’s room in the asylum of St. Paul de Mausole, France (1898)

"I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove."
            Vincent van Gogh

VINCENT VAN GOGH - A CRAB ON IT'S BACK [1887]

Look at this beautiful painting! It is in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam which stands as one of my favourite museums I have ever visited, the journey through Vincent's life is one of the most moving it has been my privilege to witness but it is possible to miss little gems to the more famous and showy (if you will?) paintings so this is worth a look and just bowls me over in it's approaching perfection. 

I re-blog this from the wonderful  'DayintoNight' weblog 

here 

Intercepted By Gravition

A Crab on its BackParis, August-September 1887 Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890)oil on canvas, 38.0 cm x 46.8 cm Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation) Van Gogh took the idea of painting a crab from Japanese prints. He had found the same subject there. Vincent and his brother Theo collected colourful Japanese woodcuts.
Here, Van Gogh painted the crab in bright shades of red against a green background. He was experimenting with what he called ‘the laws of colour’described by the French painter Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863). According to this theory, colours like red and green form a pair. They are known as complementary because, when placed side by side, they both have a stronger effect. Van Gogh was a great admirer of Delacroix and had learned about his colour theory from books by Charles Blanc.

VINCENT

Still Life with Scabiosa and Ranunculus  1886

I believe I am justified in concluding, without exaggeration, that physically I shall be able to stand this life, in spite of all, for a few more years, let’s say from six to ten. I’m not going to take any care of myself or avoid excitement and worry; it’s a matter of relative indifference to me how long I live… so I am living like an ignoramus who only knows one thing for certain: I must accomplish the work I have set myself to do in a few years… the world is of hardly any importance to me, except for the fact that I owe it something, which I am morally bound to pay, since I have been wandering about in it for so many years and ought to show my gratitude by bequeathing it a few mementos in the shape of drawings or pictures not undertaken to please any particular tendency but to express sincere human feeling.

— Vincent Van Gogh, in a letter, seven years before his death 

The Mulberry Tree

Detail from Wheat Field with Cypresses

On this day . . . . . . . the 29th July

Vincent van Gogh didn’t start painting properly until he was 27 but his oeuvre included nearly 900 finished works — an average of about 2 per week — that's not including drawings of which there are many many more. One of the most astonishing facts is that when he was working in the Borinage peat cutting district of Belgium and drawing pretty much every day he left behind so many drawings (see remainder in the Catalogue Raisonne) the family he lodged with in their outhouse were able to burn the drawings to keep warm for some considerable time . . . . . . it is also estimated that he must have been drawing or painting every day before he died at 37

"I would like to leave this world and never return. I severed my ear, but how I wish that I had severed my heart. I shall never amount to anything." — Vincent van Gogh

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream 

Died after shooting himself in a wheat field some few days before - 29 July 1890 

also on this day . . . . . . . . 

On this day in music history: July 29, 1967 - “Light My Fire” by The Doors hits #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 3 weeks. Written by Robby Krieger, John Densmore, Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison, it is the biggest hit for the L.A. based rock band. Composed mainly by guitarist Robby Krieger, it is credited to the entire band when he brings the unfinished song into the studio (in August of 1966 at Sunset Sound Recorders in Hollywood, CA), for the other band members to expand upon. The nearly seven minute long track is edited down to under three minutes for single release when it receives heavy airplay as an LP cut. The edited mono single version also presents the song at its originally recorded speed. The more commonly heard stereo LP version was mixed at a slightly slower speed due to an error made during the mixing process. Released as the second single from the bands self-titled debut album in May of 1967, it quickly becomes a radio staple. Entering the Hot 100 at #93 on June 3, 1967, it reaches the top of the chart eight weeks later. Shortly after The Doors top the chart, they are invited to perform their number one hit on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 17, 1967. The censors at CBS ask the band to change the lyric “girl we couldn’t get much higher”, to “girl, we couldn’t get much better”, feeling that the original lyric is a drug reference. Jim Morrison initially agrees, then sings the original line anyway during the live broadcast. The move infuriates host Ed Sullivan, leading him to permanently banning The Doors from the top rated variety show. Only a year after the original version “Light My Fire” tops the chart, it becomes a major hit again, when it is covered by musician Jose Feliciano. His version peaks at #3 on the Hot 100 in August of 1968. The song is recorded numerous times over the years by several artists including Shirley Bassey, The Four Tops, Johnny Mathis, Nancy Sinatra, Stanley Turrentine, Al Green, Minnie Riperton, and Amii Stewart to name a few. The jazz/R&B duo Young-Holt Unlimited (“Soulful Strut”) record an instrumental version in 1969, which is widely sampled in later years, most notably as the basis of Above The Law’s hit “Untouchable” in 1990. “Light My Fire” is certified Gold in the US by the RIAA, and is inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 1998.

VINCENT VAN GOGH

This had been preying on my mind . . . I couldn't recall where it was from but the sentiment summarised what I had been thinking about Vincent Van Gogh . . . . .

Every word of this dialogue issued so brilliantly by Bill Nighy struck home to me and seemed to reveal the truth as I saw it . . . . . . . . . .where is it from?

it's from Dr. Who!

The Doctor meets Van Gogh . . .

"To me Van Gogh is the finest painter of them all. Certainly the most popular great painter of all time. The most beloved. His command of colour. . . the most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world . . .  No-one had ever done it before. Perhaps no-one ever will again. To my mind, that strange, wild man who rammed the fields of Provence . . . was not only the world's greatest artists but also one of the greatest man who ever lived."

Tony Curran excellently cast as Vincent in Dr Who

written by Richard Curtis broadcast 5 June 2010 with an uncredited appearance by Bill Nighy

Ha ha ha ha . . . does this make it any less true, meaningful or somehow worth less?

No!

It is still true . . . . . go to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and tell me I am wrong


The notion expressed by Richard Curtis through the delivery by Bill Nighy is almost too painful to seriously contemplate; the pathos of Vincent overhearing an art expert stating the truth that he was destined to never hear nor even glimpse any slight suggestion of that he would become amongst the most beloved of great painters is almost too much to take on board but possesses a kind of natural justice we all wish upon him . . .