In a Van Gogh Painting

Sunflower Farm, Half Moon Bay

One Day

One day after another —
Perfect
They all fit.

Robert Creeley
via Pome by Matthew Ogle

Art Talk and Walk

On May 23rd, I posted an Ellen Bass poem with a copy of one of my favorite Matisse paintings, Open Window at Collioure. Today I actually saw the painting! I stood right in front of it, the window and the ocean and the boats and the green and the sky. The pinks and the blues made me tear up a bit. Here it is, straight on.

I went with Henry to check out the brand new Van Gogh to Kandinsky show at LACMA -- one of those blockbuster big-city art shows that's only bearable if you go on a Member's Preview day. This is a Gauguin:

I was struck, as always, by the excessive flesh of the women of the time, by how lovingly and reverently they were painted. No sinew or muscle or abs of steel. Dang. I was born in the wrong century.

It was a wonderful show -- not too many people and not too many paintings, all of them hung on walls painted the most beautiful shade of dark blue. Here's a wonderful Picasso sketch:

I rounded a corner and caught, from the corner of my eye, Van Gogh's Wheat Field with Reaper and Sun. That definitely brought tears to my eyes. I didn't take a photo -- but I did walk back and look at it for a second time, along with the Matisse. I don't know very much -- o.k., anything, really -- about art, but certain paintings move me to distraction, and this is one of them.  Here's a copy from the internets:

The yellows, the green, the sun, the man's sickle and green clothes, that strip of blue mountain -- magnificent.

It's been a stressful, hairy two days and I was upset with myself for having reserved my two tickets (free with membership) for this afternoon, but I'm so glad that I went. Strolling around these paintings, listening to the murmurs of appreciative visitors and basking in color and vision -- it was just the thing to dispel some of that hair.

Happy Birthday Vincent Van Gogh**

 When I have a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.

Vincent Van Gogh 

via s.landry

**Van Gogh is a famous epileptic and therefore dear to my heart. Stumbling upon this quote on Facebook this morning seemed significant and has effectively dispelled my Easter melancholy. Read the whole letter here.

Thank You Vincent Van Gogh

A dear artist friend sent me this charcoal drawing of Vincent Van Gogh's Woman with a Child on Her Lap. I am imagining that the artist painted it for me. I'm imagining that after he had one of his own epileptic seizures, Van Gogh might have envisioned a time a century later where a woman with dark hair and large hands would hold her graceful daughter with imploring eyes in her arms after the girl's body had been wracked with jerks, when lights had flashed and color faded to sepia.