Vincent's Yellow

Auvers-sur-Oise: Part 1

Auvers, where you lived for such a brief period – the last of your life – in 1890. Auvers, where you painted seventy paintings in seventy days. Auvers, where you shot yourself, where you died, where your bones still reside.

A block from the train stop, things look familiar.

The town hall.

Ghosts greet me.

The Auberge Ravoux, where you stayed, and my goodness that crystal light and blue, blue sky – clear as a bell.

This building has become a little chapel to you, the restaurant and facade restored and preserved as much as possible, down to the menu.

The back yard now has plaques full of your biography, and yes — your room is open to the public. They allow us to enter in small groups; it is a startlingly small space. Here you lived, here you piled up your paintings, here you stumbled back to after shooting yourself in the field, here you died with your brother holding your hand two days later.

Apparently after that it was deemed “the suicide room” and no one would stay there. The room was never altered or redecorated. It is the same today as the day you died.

It remains quite full.

The entrance to the room:

I touched this. You touched this. I let my fingers run over the door knob, the lock, the handle on the window. I wondered if the cracks in the walls had formed since your death, or were there to begin with. I breathed in.

A friend I had made the day before captured the below images. Many thanks to him for taking them, and allowing me to share them with you now.

Affected is not a strong enough word.

Tags: Auvers, beauty, death, end, europe, light, love, Paris, time travel

Musée d’Orsay

They like Vincent at the Musée d’Orsay. I mean, I suppose he’s a popular guy, but wow. They’ve got banners, this big sign, and he gets a whole room to himself! Hot.

Did I mention that it’s a beautiful museum too? A converted train station, actually.

Definitely my favorite museum in Paris.

Now! To the paintings! What’s great is that these are all from the last two years in his life, and every one is stellar. I’m going to pick my favorites (of the favorites!) but I recommend clicking on any photo here to see more from my visit to this beautiful room at the Musée d’Orsay.

Church at Auvers, 1890.

I feel quite blessed that I actually was able to capture the glow of this sky. Also, I got to see this church in person the following day (wow, time is crazy) and it is both this beautiful, and this unique. Or I suppose you might say strange…?

This may be my favorite figure in any landscape painting of his ever. Yes, inside her bonnet is exposed canvas. Exquisite!

Noon: Rest from Work (after Millet), 1889-1890.

My favorite of all of Vincent’s copies. While in the asylum, he did copies of paintings he especially loved and admired based on black and white etchings in  books (improvising color onto them), and Millet was one of his favorite painters. Here’s the original:

L’Arlesienne (Madame Ginoux), 1888.

This is just a fabulous portrait.

Love the look on her face. That background color isn’t half-bad either. :)

Self-Portrait, 1889.

Here we go: Vincent’s last self-portrait. Seeing it in person, you can see the precision of the strokes — this painting is truly a masterpiece.

It took steady control and immense concentration to execute this… and on top of that, how evocative! How deep and expressive!

I stood in that museum staring into these eyes until at long last, the guards personally told me it was time to leave. That’s generally how I dealt with the museum hours – I relished every second, every brush stroke. Maybe it was a bit annoying to the guards, but hey, it’s not like I was the only one.

And anyway, who knows when I will be able to gaze into these eyes – into you, Vincent – again…

Tags: art, memorial, museum, Paris

Artistic Inspiration, Letters, and Journeys

So firstly, I wanted to share this little darling. I simply love artistic responses to Vincent, but particularly when they are well done. A few days ago I stumbled across a blog of a yarn dyer extraordinaire (all done by hand!), who also made this  – which made me smile quite warmly, I might add:

If only I knitted, then I’d make myself some kind of blanket or something and get as close as possible to wrapping myself up in a canvas of his. Sigh. Someday. (The blanket, not the canvas!)

Next up, I highly HIGHLY recommend looking at the Van Gogh Museum’s new website of Vincent’s letters! They’re doing a huge exhibition of the letters that just opened in Amsterdam (I guess I went at the wrong time, and yes, I’m already quietly calculating how I could possibly swing getting there before it closes), and it all sounds pretty amazing.

The website in particular is fantastic because it holds ALL the information of the newly published, fully annotated, fully illustrated(!), and corrected six-volume edition of his complete letters (15 years in the making), that right now costs 325 euros… but online, it’s free! My favorite quote from the Guardian article reviewing the exhibition: “There is no catalogue for the show. Instead, several sets of the six massive volumes – I carried one back from Amsterdam, and was glad my hand luggage wasn’t weighed – are laid out on tables on every floor in the exhibition. I watched one elderly couple, and a goth-ish teenager, sit side by side reading companionably for an hour.” Awww. Anyhow, it’s a big shift for me, obviously, because a lot of my research is based on his letters.

In fact, the more immediate issue for me is my quotes project. On both twitter and facebook, I have been putting up daily quotes from Vincent’s letters, matching the date as closely as I can. It has been an enormous project, requiring a lot of energy and focus from me every day. I always try to chose quotes that express something unique about Vincent, while trying to balance the outcome (not too many depressing quotes in a row), and while not being repetitive. I started at the end of June, and will continue for one year. Of course, feel free to follow and/or friend him (both accounts function as Vincent) — especially on facebook, interesting things have been happening there with people who comment on the quotes and also interact with each other. People seem to have a lot to say to Vincent.

For me, it has also created an interesting journey. Vincent is in my life everyday – be it Sunday or Thursday, be  it an early morning or recovery from a late night. I always try to post the quotes around mid-day, central standard time, and it’s become a quiet mission, a long journey for me. I also am really enjoying slowly progressing with Vincent throughout the years, understanding what October 8th was for him in 1876, 1882, 1889… And feeling the oncoming events. Anticipation.

Gauguin is coming soon, for instance, at the end of October 1888, and that will only last nine weeks before utter disaster strikes. In October 1883, Vincent just left his long-time significant other Sien, the prostitute with whom he lived for some time. He left because it was impossible, and went far North into the Netherlands. I know that by December, he will give up on living in Drenthe. He will be too lonely, or perhaps to broke to go it alone. I can already see his emotions slide. After that, he moves in with his parents in Nuenen.

It is almost more real to progress with him in this way, for it to be autumn for him and for me, and to anticipate the coming winter with yes, a little dread. I started the quotes project to reveal to others the beauty of his words, and the cogency of his mind – to spread his influence. But it has had more of an effect on me than I anticipated.

Today’s quote:

“We have an absolutely merciless mistral, but I must hold myself in readiness, the work is done in short intervals. So that everything must be prepared and ready for the attack.”
–8 Oct 1888 to Theo

Yes. Sometimes, my love, it is a battle.

Tags: amsterdam, art, change, life, memorial, museum, quotes, Research, time travel, Travel, writing