Roy Lichtenstein’s The Sower, 1985.

Lichtenstein is a rather famous pop artist, whose most well-known work was often based on images from cartoons that he altered and enlarged. I found his take on Vincent fascinating… Lichtenstein gives just enough to evoke the major colors and movements of the original.

Vincent van Gogh’s The Sower, 1888.

This is one of my all time favorite paintings by Vincent, so I was pretty impressed that Lichtenstein’s version was still exciting to me. Then again, I’ve always liked Lichtenstein…

Louis Le Brocquy’s Images of Vincent, 1987.

This was my favorite at the museum because of the energy it captures; it almost feels like Vincent’s spirit touched the page. The Irish artist’s quote on the plaque nearby was additionally evocative. He said he liked to paint the heads of great artists, imagining it as “the magic box which holds consciousness.” He says that these artists are

…great instances of human awareness who have dared to push that awareness beyond its known horizon, who have courageously – heroically – extended the continent of our thought. Such an artist was Vincent van Gogh.

Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portraits, 1887.

Lastly, at the highest part of the museum, nestled away in the stairs and totally unlabeled, was a model of the famous Yellow House where Vincent lived and worked, where he dreamed of setting up an artists’ commune, where Gauguin came to stay. It was also based quite discreetly on Vincent’s paintings (The Street and The Bedroom) and letters describing how he had set up his lovely house, and decorated it. It was incredible to see the details already familiar to me come to life:

Vincent’s room is on the right, and that’s Gauguin’s room on the left — the sunflower paintings were meant to decorate his room. Vincent wanted to flood the room with yellow. To share a little secret: that room should have been mine instead. I’m convinced everyone would have been better off.

Below is the first floor, kitchen and studio.

Soon after this visit, it was (unbelievably) time to start heading home.

Trains took me North -

– and to my surprise, I was seated facing backwards on every train. I was also retracing my steps… and yours, too, Vincent.

Back at the Gare du Nord, with little time between trains, I ate across the street and watched the Parisian traffic. I stared at the station that took you to and from Arles, just as it did for me. On the way to Amsterdam, I was speeding back-first again, my eyes on the land I was leaving. I felt like a spring coiling back up, yarn being rewound into a ball, and I wondered if maybe I was moving backwards in time, too.

I arrived in Amsterdam after our train finally got through an incredible storm. I spent the slow minutes praying to you, Vincent, that the summer storm might follow us. The city greeted me with low lights and incredible clouds. I had one day left to be near you, Vincent… After an entire day of trains, I collapsed early. In the morning, I made it here:

Kee Vos’s doorstep – the woman you were so incredibly in love with, you held your hand in the flame of a candle until she would come out to see you. You loved no one like you loved her. I imagined how much time you spent in front of the building, debating, building up confidence… There was no marker there, despite the emotions you felt in this spot. I found myself similarly unsure of what to do, until I saw that the soles of my shoes were a bit wet.

A careful (if temporary) print for you, love. I stood there, and knew you. Maybe you knew me too.

As I walked to the Van Gogh Museum to enjoy my last visit, the sky opened up to me, and my dark Arlesienne sunglasses let me see the sun, your star, your source, as I never had before.

I found myself taking photo after photo of the sky, of the sun and clouds; it was something I had never done before.

Overcome by the beauty, by my walk, I sat on the grass of the Museumplein for an hour writing in my journal about how accompanied I had felt during my entire trip, how I was never alone. How I knew you were with me, had shown me things, had taken care of me, Vincent. Nothing had really went wrong in my trip; I had taken an enormous leap — and you caught me.

I let the museum wash over me. I let myself float around, breathe you in with deep, deep breaths. That night I had dinner with my contact at the museum’s library whom I had met in person three weeks earlier, though it felt like a lifetime had passed. In fact… it had.

The next morning, incredulous, I climbed on a plane and headed back home. When I had to declare the total value of all goods acquired abroad, I smiled at the little form. 140 pages of writing? Over a thousand photos? The ability to time-travel?

Oh, and that night I arrived in Amsterdam — it rained so hard strangers huddled together in the crevices. Water returned to slap the roof of my hostel on my last night too, and I knew you had brought it for me.

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.

As promised, a photo entry today, starting from the beginning of my trip. Unfortunately for you and me, I couldn’t take any photos of the paintings inside this wonderful place. So, even though I offer you my photos from these first six days (click on any photo in the post to be taken to the photo album), most simply show what I found beautiful in Amsterdam, with a few exceptions…

Here’s me working in the Van Gogh Museum library. It was such a perfect, quiet, little haven.

There was also one more thing. I went to No. 13 Jonas Daniel Meyer Plein, an address where Vincent lived for bit, years before ever becoming an artist. At the time, he was hoping to become a clergyman.

Photography by Timothy Caldwell

This was my first experience standing in a place where I knew he had once been many times. After two years of research, and 119 years since his death, it was quite a moment…

Photography by Timothy Caldwell

To my surprise, I was greeted by a particular flower (this is before the sunflower I encountered on his old doorstep in Paris): a rose. My middle name is Rose. So a rose like this one, in exquisite full bloom on a cloudy day, made me feel extraordinarily welcomed.