Being an artist always involves torture because it is truly not a field of interest for popular culture. Dwelling on an image or nature in front of you as a painter is an obsessive approach to capturing a moment of high intensity. Even Warhol is an artist of intensity, and I have never seen a painting that is not intense. Marcel Duchamp famously commented that paintings and their purposes are set to please the eye, not the intellect. He is correct in a fashion, but I think all, if not most, paintings deal with ideas. Landscape paintings, for instance, are not pictures of someone’s mountain range, sea, or flower garden but more of the psychological aspect of such a vision. A pair of artists who work as a team, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, do their paintings by the public taste using results from a survey. Th end result is a painting that appeals to the eye but is also highly conceptual. Vincent van Gogh looks at the landscape and sees intensity in livid colors. He’s conceptually minded, but he sees what he sees.
The main location for van Gogh’s paintings is Auvers-sur-Oise, which I thought was hundred miles away from Paris, but it’s only 20 miles north of Paris. Yet, the two locations are so different from each other. In the Robert Altman film Vincent and Theo, the van Gogh character makes a big stink about going back to Paris, which in my mind had to be a trip to the heart of Africa, but alas, his train trip from Paris to Auvers-sur-Oise would take anywhere from one hour to two hours, depending on how many stops the train had to make. But now I understand that it is not miles or physical distance that van Gogh was commenting but his mental state, and how Paris or Auvers-sur-Oise would effect his well-being, or needs of an artist. It’s interesting to note that this commune in the department of Val-d'Oise has a museum devoted to the alcohol Absinthe. Here one can see the artifacts of the Absinthe industry such as old ads, antique glasses and spoons, that reflect the physical world of the hallucinogenic beverage. Also a focus on the poets and artists who were fans of the drink such as Paul Verlaine, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and of course, van Gogh.
The location also had Camille Pissarro, a painter that van Gogh admired, and who also did landscapes. I always find landscaping paintings or drawings the most personal approach to what the artist sees. Even when their work is realistic, it is touched by what the artist observes, and how they feel the colors. Colors in a painting is more about the sense of feeling the presence of, than seeing the color. Of course, how the paintbrush or hand gives a individualistic approach on the canvas, it is the definition of Realism in art that I don’t feel can be conveyed, because Human Nature changes how we look at nature and objects. I is one of the reasons why I find the medium of paintings so interesting and endlessly fascinating.
The inspiration behind this essay is me watching three films, two directly about van Gogh, and the other on his troubled friend, Paul Gauguin. The van Gogh films are Vincent & Theo (Robert Altman) and At Eternity’s Gate (Julian Schnabel). The third film is Gauguin: Voyage to Tahiti (Édouard Deluc). I enjoyed all three and what’s interesting is how van Gogh is portrayed in the films. The two films focusing on him actually have two different characters. Tim Roth in Altman film, and Willem Dafoe in the Schnabel work are very different from each other, yet, both are in essence van Gogh. Roth has a punk rock approach to his character, and Dafoe is more thoughtful and even meditative. I feel that Dafoe captures the real essence of the artist, and Roth is more expressionistic, but funny enough Vincent’s younger brother Theo is more realistic and real-like in character in the Altman film. So in both films, the younger brother is playing the opposite of the older one. Perhaps for dramatic conflict, or whatever the truth of their relationship is, the contrast between the two are significant. The Gauguin film is good, but it is also interesting how he’s portraited in both films. All stories are based on fact, yet the film artist sees the character differently from each other.
How you or I see something can be something totally different. There are three trees, a few crows, and the sun is setting over this landscape. How one portrays this image is what makes it fascinating, and not two people see the same thing. Which makes the artwork by Komar and Melamid so funny, because they try to make the Idealized painting as chosen by a committee. The reason I like art (in all its formats) is that each artist brings something unique to their character or skills. Even a bland pop song for me is something to marvel at, because bad art is just as fascinating as a artistic masterpiece. There are art works that I hate, but even that is enjoyable experience. Of course, this is only my personal take on all of this.
Photo above is a young Vincent van Gogh.
Thanks Tosh. Excellent insights about that lonely place between Art and popular culture. History is full of those who dare to challenge the impossible. Van Gogh seems to have become the flashpoint although it could be Rimbaud or even Jean Michel Basquiat. The list is endless. Van Gough is the perfect example for all the ages.
Sweet reminder of Duchamp’s teasing the 20th century with the false dichotomy in painting between beauty and ideas. And the clever segue way to van Gogh, who represents the apex of both stunning gorgeousness and tortured intellect. Top form.