The Ghost of Van Gogh
March 13th, 2006
Are there worse things than feeling like you want to quit? I’m here in Chicago to face my demons and the vicious cycle of my reasons. I’m hear to challenge the voices in my head, the unkind voices, the ones that wake my up in the middle of the night with their loud chatter demanding to know what the future holds, listing all the things that can go wrong if I don’t pay attention to them.
I am here in the Art Institute of Chicago, resting on a bench in a large room surrounded by paintings done by mad men. Right in front to me is a large Seurat. It is a sunny scene in France; there is a lake and a park filled with people. But there is something else in this room; the greatest painters of the late 1800's and they are in loud conversation all around me.
My mind swims. It’s as though in another dimension museum patrons are shuffling in and out of the room looking tired. I see people looking at artwork but what are they really seeing? I feel that there are ghosts in this room. Am I the only one who can hear them?
I feel the ghosts of men whose bodies have long been gone. Yes, I can feel their presence in the pure intention put into their work. They are very much alive, standing in this very room dressed in their work clothes and covered in paint. Each one is standing near his painting wondering why history has chosen these particular paintings to stand as representatives of their life’s work. I can hear Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) and Henri Matisse (1869-1954) loudly discussing how these painting are not the best of their work, and how we should have seen the paintings that never made it, the ones they painted over or used as firewood. These men have bled their lives, their fears and their loves onto these canvases.
They have done the unreasonable; the completion and showing of their work to the world.
Here is Georges Seurat (1859-1891) standing before me. He is the best dressed of them all. An artist, a painter yes, but always a gentleman. He was always neat, even as a boy. He painted with precision losing himself in the worlds he created, the only place on earth he was truly happy. The rough world of resignation and bitterness was never his. So he created his own worlds for us to enjoy when are minds became tired of seeking the unknowable. His paintings took the longest to complete, but complete them he did. And now he is calling over to his friends and cohorts, Claude Monet (1840-1926) and Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), also covered in paint and grime, smiling and laughing about something. Seurat is telling the story about the best painting he ever did, and how he destroyed the canvas after his mistress left him. I don’t know, it must be an inside joke. Maybe I can’t understand because I’m still on this earthly plane.
In contrast to Seurat, Degas over there is rough around the edges. He stands next to his ‘Dancers In Pink’. He painted emotions, truths in color, from scenes of bar life to delicate ballet dancers.’ He got a kick out of walking the back alleys of life and finding the beauty that others missed. He loved life and was sad to give it up, still wishing he could join friends for just one more glass of absinthe. He stands next to his work complaining that he needed more time, that these paintings are not finished. He demands to know why these works are being viewed in this way. The others get the joke.
And right over there is Van Gogh, the poster child for the tortured artists, and the most unreasonable of them all. He is standing next to his absurdly yellow sunflowers, his orange sky, and his blue and green faces. I can feel him in the room. He is dressed in dark pants, big muddy boots and a white shirt. He is covered in paint, on his face, in his hair. He’s a mess, looks like he hasn’t slept for days. He stares me down. Somehow he knows he is validated in death and that in the end we can all see a little bit of our truth in his perspective. All along he was saying, ‘it’s my perspective, you don’t have to agree or disagree with it, there is no right or wrong here.’
Did you ever stop and wonder where we would be if these men had quit? This room would be bare white walls and I would be alone, lost in my insane questioning.
No, these men kept on going. They didn’t say, ‘Oh, paint has really gone up in price, I can’t do this anymore.’ They didn’t say, ‘I have to stop painting because I need more beauty sleep.’ Sure, they struggled with many things, including finding inspiration. They probably got tired of trying and failing, not knowing if the next painting would work.
But they didn’t quit because life was hard, or the heat was cut off or their rooms grew cold. They didn’t quit when the greatness of their works were being misunderstood, when they endured attacks by those who resisted this new way of seeing. When hearts were broken, when love ones died, when buyers were no more and the money ran out, this group of unreasonable men who are now in loud conversation around me, kept completing canvas after canvas. Why? Because they finished their canvases! What is the sound of one hand clapping? The sound of one hand clapping! It just is. I find myself smiling. Then I let out a big Buddha laugh; I get it!
So here I am in early 2006 struggling with the same dilemma artists have always struggled with; should I keep going; can I keep going? If so, how? What do I say to these guys? What do I say to the ghost of Van Gogh? I say this; I am going to do as you have done; I’m going to be unreasonable and I’m not going to quit. I’ll start again by asking questions. Then I’ll ask questions about my questions; questions like ‘what action do I need to take right now?’ I AM going back to work.
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