In which I wax poetic about Van Gogh….
Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 5:06PM Being that I am a self-proclaimed nerd, you probably already connected the dots and figured that I expend a lot of energy obsessing over various things. One of the major ones is art. Not just attempting to create it, but the process of understanding and appreciating it. And in some cases eye fucking certain works. One in particular is Vincent Van Gogh. It seems like the easiest choice, it’s like saying you like The Beatles. But when you are in a museum with walls full of stoic looking boring royalty, you’d understand. Not to say you are picking something cause everything else is so-so, it’s much more than that. In my mind the Impressionist painters where bohemian. They were the hippies of their era. And Van Gogh was like their Jimi Hendrix. Artists were painting not just what they saw, but how they saw it. And up until that point that was a pretty unique approach. They paved the way for many modern artists today.
Anyhow that gushing brings me to the point of this blog entry; I was in Detroit last month visiting family and attending a funeral. While I was there I decided to make the best of the circumstances for being there and checked out the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Two days before I had been reading “The Doors of Perception” on the plane ride to Detroit. And in it happened to be a bit about the author viewing some Van Gogh art work while taking psychedelics and how the painting really spoke to him and how this artist’s work finally made sense to him. It already made sense to me, but even more so now having seen some with my own eyes. The first painting I saw was one of my favorites, a self-portrait. I tried not to tear up. (Go ahead and roll your eyes) I felt like I was looking right into this man’s eyes. Not because it looked so realistic, but because it felt so real. You could look into those eyes and they were looking back into you, and for that moment in time that he was able to capture with his brush, and serve it up to generations of eyeballs to enjoy.
Enough gushing, here are some photos I took while at the museum
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The Diggers, Self Portrait and Joseph Roulin all together @ the DIA
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Self Portrait, Paris, Summer 1887
Close up of "Boats to Rent". I love how thickly the paint was applied, it adds tons of depth to it depending on the lighting in the room.
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Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin, Arles 1888
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It made me happy to see that just a few feet away his pal Gaughin was there looking like a smug wise cracking bar fly.
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Also got to behold this massive mural by Diego Rivera. "Detroit Industry" 1957.
A close up. My photos in no way do this thing justice. This work is gigantic and breath taking. You could look at it for hours and still not see all there is too see.
Now back to bed to nurse this cold from hell. Not the way I had planned on starting the New Year.
