A dream come true for Nieta y Nieto. For their abuela too. Prepped ourselves good with an afternoon visit of Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, read up on countless books and articles on this genius, and checked out his many artworks both popular and not so. There were many of the latter too. After all, Van Gogh was such a prolific painter (over 2,000! — nearly half of which painted in Provence in his short life’s last 2 years) that countless works didn’t earn as much distinction as those made into posters, postcards and other merch. Being big fans of Vincent, we made sure we didn’t miss the Van Gogh Tour as a day trip from our Provençal base in Avignon. The driver guide we had for this adventure was named after the artist. His namesake, another Vincent. He wasn’t the best driver and the 3 of us had vertigo spells as Vincent weaved through the traffic and hardly stepped on the brakes. We leaned left, right, forward just like Van Gogh’s sunflowers caught in a mistral. But he was a good guide, and obviously loves the place of his birth, Provence. In Arles, he brought us first to the garden park where Van Gogh painted many landscapes. The “lighting” and bright colors he was searching for, he found in the south of France. The trees have grown since over a century ago, and the layout must have changed. But the sheer thought that we are treading on the same soil and may have stood on the same spot as the great artist is mind-blowing. The apos were thrilled!
A marker stands by the park’s frontage. A loving dedication to a most venerated visitor-resident who moved from Paris to this Provençal town. He may have been “chasing the softer light” in Provence but I suspect what he found as well was something to “quiet” his soul and pacify his troubled mind. Away from the city chaos, Vincent painted away madly in Arles, as he did in St. Remy de Provence while in asylum and finally in his last residence in Auvers-sur-Oise. The exhibit we viewed — “Final Moments in Auvers” — at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam prepared viewers to the artist’s mind’s turmoil as he moved from Arles to St. Remy to Auvers. In today’s world, science may have tagged him as bipolar or suffering from ADHD. Who knows? What’s known for sure is that he painted a lot in a very short period of his artistic life. Darn, he painted madly in his short life. Dead at 37, he left behind many sketches, etchings, paintings of landscapes, nature, still lifes, peasants, and quite a pile of self-portraits. In all this, he proclaimed: “Art is to console those who are broken by life.” Poignant message. Pierces the soul.
Who can say what he found in Arles while he lived there? Stayed 15 months, created over 300 masterpieces. Just like Picasso, Arles ignited his passion and provided him innumerable objects of inspiration. He loved painting nature, and painted it in bold, dramatic hues. He may have exaggerated the “force” of the howling wind from the Mediterranean, brightened up several notches the starlights and the moon and the sun, deepened the blue hues of the sky. My apologies — I’m rambling. No art expert here. Just a regular fan’s musings. Indulge me. 😊
For sure, he found time to indulge himself. The Cafe de Van Gogh is marked as a tourist trap but how can you dismiss nor ignore this place? He painted Cafe Terrace at Night with this inspiration. The starry night background started a series and it is reported that Van Gogh has developed a stargazing habit which may have been prompted by some religious attachment. He proceeded to paint more star-filled skies after this, the most epic of which is “Starry Night”. At the same time, his stay in Arles was marked by an ear-slicing incident that brought him to a hospital just before Christmas. He had a serious altercation with Gauguin who lived with him in Arles briefly in a two-storey yellow house immortalised in a painting. Sadly, this incident marked the start of the artist’s deteriorating mental health. It won’t be long after this hospital stint that Vincent volunteered to be admitted in an asylum in St. Remy de Provence. Amidst all this turmoil, he created many works of art. The hospital courtyard is now called “Espace Van Gogh” and is included in every typical Van Gogh Tour around Arles.
lifeisacelebration 