As a college student I tacked up prints of Starry Night and Vase with Twelve Sunflowers, along with Picasso reproductions and drawings by friends. I buy art, a luxury item whether you are rich or poor, but at times a necessity. Impoverished Van Gogh had to have his Japanese prints.
Vincent and Theo was showing at the Senior Center Tuesday night. It's an interesting crowd that turns up, highly educated older women and a few antique husbands. Jesse and I feel like kids. A retired professor introduced the film and put a condensed timeline of Vincent Van Gogh's short life on the chalkboard (language teacher, art dealer, preacher.) Van Gogh began painting seriously in 1880. The professor described Arles, an old Roman town in France he and his wife visited, an artist colony and home to Van Gogh and others such as Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec.
Vincent produced 700 drawings and water colors and 800 oil paintings, only one of which was sold during his lifetime, though his older brother Theo strove mightily to interest the public. Now, of course, one painting of Van Gogh's sells for hundreds of millions of dollars and it's a privilege to see even one.
Vincent and Theo died within six months of each other, Vincent from suicide at age 47, Theo from syphilis. Theo supported Vincent financially throughout his career, accumulating Vincent's paintings in his tiny Paris apartment. Van Gogh's best work, the body of his work, was from the period when he knew himself to be mentally ill. There was little treatment in the late 1800's for either brother except asylums. The constant was their love for each other.
In the film Van Gogh's painting of the ominous crows in the wheat field presaged his suicide. The background music was kicky and metallic. Did his mental illness contribute to his art or hinder it? Was the problem genetic or was he poisoned by his own paints? Would he have continued to create masterpieces?
Even science fiction writers are fascinated by Van Gogh. Last season an episode of Dr. Who saw a visit to the artist by the Time Lord and his companion after they saw a disputed Van Gogh painting of their phone booth time/space vehicle and the shadow of an alien creature peering out of the windows of The Church at Auvers.
In the movie and the tv show familiar paintings and stagings elicited pleasant recognition. Other paintings I hadn't seen. A trip to the library for art books to track down those hundreds of paintings and drawings will be a treat in this winter season. It's another way to be a collector.