Thursday, October 25, 2007

Wheat field with crows, Auvers/ van Gogh.

This is so very beautiful.
If only they had the medication to administer. To shut the dark voices out.
All the lovely perazines and dols and the quetiapine and risperidone..
If only they had the insight.
Maybe he’d have been happier?
Maybe not.
Maybe the burnt sienna and awesome blues (just look at that sky!) jade greens and the generous mad shower of sunlight that dances through his work, wouldn’t have been seen, understood and mixed in the brain, for the transfer to canvas to happen.
Who knows!
“Here is an artist literally on the verge of taking his life and filled with a tremendous despondency yet he is still painting with lemon yellows, azure blues and emerald greens. We know that this is a man barely holding on to his will to live, yet he is able to separate his energy and focus on what he sees before him.”- Sotheby's official.

8 comments:

CRUSTY MOM-E said...

WOW!!!! I liked this! AND i wanted to say, thanks for backing me up with the anon person over in my HOW TO KNOW WHEN? Post...funny thing, the anon does have a blog never posts but I'm sure now there'll be more postings. Thanks for backing me up!! :)
Have a great day Austie!
Always,
Crusty~
(that rhymes a bit..Austie Crusty)

AmitL said...

Hi,Austy,now,this was unusual....Van Gogh...another enigma of the bygone world...I wonder what people like him would have done in these days of e-paintings?

Nice post.

Portia said...

I think that's a fascinating question you've asked, would he have been happier? Would he have been as "good"? What part did illness or depression play in his art? Perhaps he would have the same talent regardless, but what about the ability to touch so many souls? Is it better to try and make the whole world happy, or to see the beauty that comes from what is?
(I don't have the answers, by the way, but I don't expect any either:)

Anonymous said...

I hate confessing that I am an artist, people think I'm mad enough as it is.

Sometimes people seperate themselves from their selves too often, they don't know how to pull back together again.

Did Humpty Dumpty really fall off that wall? Or was he a cracked egg to begin with?
-P

austere said...

Crusty- but of course they rhyme. :)
Glad you liked the wheat field picture isnt it awesome?


amitl- I think he would have retreated even further from the madding crowds and let the world do as it pleased.

portia- so many q's indeed. such pain too, you know the tale about his cutting off his ear? who knows, the azures and the jades where they would have been?

proxima- :) cracked to begin with, that's why he was sitting on the wall on a perfectly good day instead of rolling over to breakfast. I know wht you mean. Sometimes the pieces are impossible to scotchtape, or rafu.

mystic rose said...

true.. without that kind of psyche, that kind of energy he wouldnt have been able to see things the way he did..which was quite different from the rest of the crowd... and also i think brought a lot of positive attention to what was till then just considered madness.

what was to some filled with beauty, to others was filled with pain.

Anonymous said...

I think the secret is to turn the maddening self-destructive bad energy into an creative outburst. Nobody says that art is friendly to the artist.
"Art is a dirty job. But someone has to do it."

austere said...

mystic- the last line is powerful. But what a price to pay, so very sad.You've read "lust for life" of course?

mago- with the flickers of self doubt eating away at the core, with the constant giving and getting nothing in return, not one painting sold, yet growling at the monster that preys on your mind, yet going on...creative outburst, some can.