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Tag: Vincent van Gogh
February 11, 2017
“Is Art Truth?”
“Paradise”
__________
“Is Art Truth?“, a friend asks after speaking of
its benefits, “Art accepts and tells the truth-Is
that it ?“, she inquires, wonders
art, like truth itself and beauty, is in the eye
of the beholder, I submit, and therefore my
definition is, once again, entirely personal,
though I’ve rigorously plumbed it
it requires background
art died for a thousand years, it was
essentially unrecorded, dormant from
the fall of Rome to the Renaissance, nor
promoted but for Catholic purposes,
hence the majestic cathedrals and the
magisterial altarpieces, works produced
by, however, communities until eventually
certain artisans were recognized as more
inspired than others, and given autonomy
enter Duccio, for instance
in time these new, necessarily idiosyncratic
perspectives – see Hieronymus Bosch, Dante
Alighieri – dominated, veering in their search
for truth in their art and beauty – selling points,
incidentally – towards less strictly orthodox
utterances
see above
art, and its contemporary science, were
chipping away at ecclesiastical dogma
till God died, and artists continued their
prescient march forward, shaping our
zeitgeist, our spirit of the times, with
their pronouncements for lack of any
other guides
but the voices grew personal, see Mozart,
often profound and prophetic, see
Beethoven, till the confluence of disparate
realities gave us secularism, each soul for
itself as a tenet, a credo, a belief, a truth
what did they have in common
I believe it was their quest for beauty
through truth, their quest for truth
through beauty, with a nod here to
the salient Keats
art is prayer, a search for, as well as a
manifestation of, one’s personal
identification with the sacred
it is not truth, it is not beauty, it is the
fervent intention itself, linked with a
correspondent workmanship, craft,
which inspires
see for instance van Gogh for this, who,
remember, nevertheless shot himself,
artists are mortal, merely, messengers,
ever, therefore, fallible, unsure, fearful
even, often, of their, perhaps
Promethean, fire
for consolation, or even maybe
transcendence, see again,
pertinently here, Beethoven
Richard
psst: thanks, Joan
November 29, 2013
my Amsterdam, November 30, 2013
“Van Gogh Painting Sunflowers“ (1888)
_______
after experiencing a superb Gauguin,
and an, somewhat more reticent, though
ultimately entirely convincing, other, at
the Amsterdam Hermitage, an offshoot
of the mother house in St Petersburg
there, part of an exhibition on the Nabis,
I tempered my irritation around him and
determined to give him another chance,
he’d mistreated the sublime van Gogh,
enough for me to discredit him, if only for
his lack of aesthetic judgment, not bowing
before van Gogh’s manifest preeminence
the painting above, “Van Gogh Painting
Sunflowers“, did much, also, to rehabilitate
him for me, and in the very instant
his “Self-Portrait Dedicated to Vincent van
Gogh (Les Misérables)“, teeming with
flowers that seem to me like a swarm of
insects, is at least respectful
that’s apparently van Gogh in the upper
right hand corner
who ever would ‘a’ thunk it
Richard
November 23, 2013
sharpening one’s pencil
.jpg "Cottage and Woman with Goat - Vincent van Gogh")
“Cottage and Woman and Goat“ (1885)
__________
“Village Street in Winter” (1865)
__________
having considered that I’ve just spent
hours and days in some of the world’s
finest museums, you’ll perhaps pardon
my ebullience, I’ve never to date
juxtaposed two art works, I think, for
your consideration
but I scream, essentially, at everyone
with whom I visit a museum ever,
juxtapose, juxtapose, juxtapose, it
is the truest path to aesthetic erudition,
should you be so inclined, I call it,
sharpening one’s pencil
having been overwhelmed by very
miracles of art, my mom and I, throughout
our European visit, in, specifically, Bruges,
Ghent, Amsterdam and Frankfurt, the
some of, therefore, our last, burn for me
especially bright, standing naturally
together as comparable works of art,
though choosing between them is like
deciding between oranges and apples
but that’s the point, your aesthetic
sensibility says more about you than
it says about art, if you’ll surrender to
that exploration
and like apples and oranges, it depends
on your mood that day
which is also the point
“Farmhouse” for me was a surprise, I’d
never seen this particular, wonderful,
stuck more to an anticipated style, where
been for me his most successful, I’ll have
to change my mind about that
Courbet exhibition we saw there the last
time we were there, when he became,
one of Mom’s now two favourite painters
right now for me it’s still, maybe, Canaletto,
either of them, or Chagall, Klimt, Schiele,
Monet, Avercamp, Filippo Lippi, and too
many others to really remember, I’ve
given up to merely enjoy
here’s hoping you do too
Richard
psst: click “Farmhouse in Nuenen (La Chaumière)”
and follow the icon to enlarge it (+), for an
alternate, more exact, if I remember, view of
you’ll notice a remarkable difference
January 3, 2013
“Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs”
“Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs“ is an
enchanted movie for children of all ages, that
means especially you, Manolito, that means
especially you, Aidan
you might however notice, in a more analytical
vein, the introduction of German Expressionism
even some Edvard Munch, the Norwegian, in the
bold, garish colours that expressed horror and
perversion for them following the First World War,
and did the same for Walt Disney later if you’ll
consider the evil queen’s mirror and mask, or
van Gogh branches in the threatening forest, flat
surfaces, notably on faces for instance, touched
with only daubs of colour for only perfunctory
shading and character, prefiguring incidentally,
Andy Warhol‘s Pop Art
artists talk to each other
musical atonalities, also, show up, to attest to
modernity, in the music tooted out by the pipe
organ, delivering ornery pipes and a climactic
cuckoo who can only emit a shrill, discordant
screech, we can thank especially Prokofiev,
the popinjay among the atonalists, for that,
with necessary nods to, for their more
theoretical groundwork, the more exacting
Stravinsky and the too dour, not to mention
for many too dire, Schoenberg
Walt Disney was introducing modern art not so
surreptitiously at all to the larger popular culture,
acclimatizing children especially to the new
upended and revolutionizing art, crayons at
the behest of individuality
you’ll also find interesting that Snow White
succumbs to an apple, much like Mother Eve,
both of whom are absolved, it’s worth pointing
out, by nothing other than transcendental,
transformational, regenerative and ever
inspirational, Love
think about it
Richard
January 18, 2010
“Two Cut Sunflowers” (1887) – Vincent van Gogh
“Two Cut Sunflowers” (1887)
Vincent van Gogh
___________
two cut sunflowers
the painter apportions mostly gold and blue
to let their moment last forever
Richard
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