Van Gogh Was but I'm Certainly Not

Today was all about Vincent van Gogh (or van Gog as our French guide pronounced it) a genius painter of the nineteenth century.  "Arles in van Gogh's Footsteps" was our tour today, beginning with a private painting class at La Couverture Verte ("the Green Blanket") at Arles Siqueiros Fine Arts School.  A charming, fortyish Frenchman, Phillipe Monnier, and his wife conducted a class for about 18 of us from our ship, including both Cheryl and I.

Phillipe, our instructor, with JD displaying his masterpiece
showing van Gogh's bedside table

It all centered on van Gogh, and began with us using a small square cutout that we placed over, first, a black-and-white drawing to select an area for us to try and copy.  Mine was lousy.  Then, we repeated it in color, and finally with a larger square on a larger area of a van Gogh painting.

Quite by accident, I selected a picture of his bedside table in his room at the psychiatric hospital, a place later seen with our own eyes at the Saint-Paul Asylum in Saint-Remy.  On the whole, it lasted a couple hours and was, initially, frustrating but gradually became great fun and enjoyable.  I've certainly never done anything like that before - perhaps in first grade for Ms. Ruth Taylor in 1963.

The theater in Arles, one of many local scenes
captured by van Gogh

From this experience, we walked around Arles where van Gogh spent 15 months from 1888 to 1889.  While there, he descended into madness but managed to finish 200 paintings.  All of these he gave away except one that he sold for money - the only one ever!  Our walkabout centered on sites in Arles that were imortalized by van Gogh on canvas.  It was beautiful to imagine him standing there 100+ years ago and painting away, except I imagined hearing him cursing when the mistral (see yesterday's post) would blow his materials all over the place!

After lunch in Arles, we jouneyed by bus down more of those same tiny roads (that make you wonder how two cars can pass each other in opposite directions) to St. Remy.  First, we visited a remarkably intact set of Roman remains that served as the entrance to a now competely ruined Roman city.  One column was a salute from a grandson to his grandfather while the other was an arc de triomphe.  It is amazing how they've survived when there's nothing left of the rest of the town.

Initially, van Gogh spent about two months in a psychiatric "hospital" in Arles.  His stay there was precipitated by an argument with fellow painter (and apparently his only friend) Paul Gaugin after which he cut off his left ear (bet that showed his buddy!). Later, he spent a year toward the end of his life in the mental institution attached to St. Paul de Mausole Monastery.  While there, he created 150 additional paintings including some of his best known.   Not long after his discharge, he shot himself in the chest with a revolver and died from infection a few days later at age 37.  His last words were "The sadness will last forever."

I remarked to Cheryl that the contrast between the beauty he created in his paintings vs. the sadness of his life was difficult to comprehend.  And, I can add that after the painting experience of the morning, I can truly appreciate what a genius he was because it is incredibly difficult to make something that looks reasonable and his paintings were literally glowing. So, in deference to van Gogh, he was a genius painter, and I am most certainly not. 

After our day of him, we went back into Saint-Remy for some closing shopping.   Cheryl bought a few gifts for friends and we boarded the bus after a "Coke Light" at a cafe, and are soon headed to our final dinner on the Viking Delling ship.  Tomorrow we leave at 9 a.m. for a 4-hour bus ride to Nice where we'll spend an additional 3 days.   Back to you later tomorrow evening after a walkabout and dinner in Nice.  It'll be "nice".

The Starry Night, by Vincent van Gogh

"Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)"

by Don McLean

Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul

Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue

Colors changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night

You took your life, as lovers often do
But I could've told you Vincent
This world was never meant for
One as beautiful as you

Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frame-less heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget

Like the strangers that you've met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
The silver thorn of bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow
Now I think I know
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they're not listening still
Perhaps they never will