I was searching for a painting much like Crystal's where a woman runs on a solitary street with buildings on either side. To me it symbolized human ego running through the constraining boundaries of ID (earthly emotions including libido) and the wall of Super Ego (belief systems like religion and experiences).

I faintly remembered Van Gogh had painted something similar to Crystal's - not sure but that's the impression I had and came across this early picture in Wiki titled

Sorrow



It's an amazing story where Van Gogh married Hoornik who worked as a prostitute but she went back to drinking and prostitution a year or so after marriage. Much later she was found drowned or drowned herself.

I wonder about sorrow, both Van Gogh's and Hoornik's

I guess you do not know how broken a person can be and it's consequences...self destruction?

Van Gogh had a lot of problems. And it shows in his paintings. If you look at paintings done by people with cognitive disabilities you'll see a lot of similarities to Van Goghs' art. There's a fine line between creativity and madness.

Psychologists seem to love Van Gogh. I was listening to one here, boy-o-boy, saints were his candidates.

Anyway, here is a commentary by another painter that allows one to breath.





Yeah, only madness can find beauty in simple things.

My painting you talk about is about my immense deep pain about my relationship at the time not working out. It's basically me walking away from the dream and hopes I'd had for that relationship.

I've done a series on my own process in life, and that one is part of it. The one that follows it up, years later, is "Out of the Woods", the woman in a dark red dress with an owl approaching her.
That's when I was out of the woods, free, in touch with me again etc.

Van Gogh... He's the first and basically the only master painter I've ever loved!
I'm not a fan of all of his work, but what I love so much is that you can feel his emotions and passions in his paintings.
I think you know I'm extremely intuitive and empathic, and it's truly as if I can feel his pain, his passion.

I can not paint in his style myself. I tried a few years back. And no, not the sunflowers, another one. I can't. It's not "me" to paint in that style, use his technique in brush strokes etc. It just doesn't work. It did nark me, hihi.
It was this one, The Harvest:


What I have been told about my paintings by some is that you can feel my soul, my essence, in my paintings. That that really brings them to life, adds something to it.
That's how it should be and what I get from Van Gogh as well. I admire him! Dr Who's episode with him (I believe 2 eps) were brilliant!

The other day a friend of mine, also artist and painter, said "Your ability to depict different lighting effects is second to none. Very turner."
I'd never heard of Turner, but having checked it out I see his point.

Me loves Van Gogh!

My bedroom is a shrine to starry nights ,prints throws, rug, cushions , ceiling stars and a wall hang starry nights guitar

http://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/167829523595557276/

Thanks Crystal.

The initial search for your painting was a private reason.

Then Van Gogh's Hoornik showed how befuddled my mind was, the grief and ‘emotional drain’ I was causing the other person.

Seems pain is valuable. Shows up joy in routine things. The Harvest, ha, ha

That is really cool!

Indeed a good drawing for such feelings!
Art is very much an emotional thing, expression joy or pain.
I don't know if there's a painting similar to the woman in the street I did. I had an idea in mind, then I Googled to find images that kind of matched that. Then I found the picture of the street. I thought it to be in Venice, as that's what I wanted, that feel. I later found out it's actually a street somewhere in south France.
So I took that street and added the woman to it.
It took me quite some time to paint, which I think was good as while working at it I was able to digest and let go some of my own deep pain.
When it was done someone pointed out there's an angelic figure in the sky, looking down on the woman. Took me some time to see it, but it is there :) That was a good feeling.
Someone else who saw it, a poet, was so inspired by it that he asked my permission to write a poem about it. It's about the legend of Venice, that's she's an old lady who comes to life at night when everyone's gone or asleep and then roams through her own street.
It's in Dutch, otherwise I'd share it.

You're an interesting person, Jaish. Depth. Psychology, science, art. Nice!

Lucky you closed the line with 'Nice' or as an Indian I would have thought you were in love. That's how Indian minds & hearts work. Took me some time to recover. ha!

Talk of love, although Van Gogh claims he recovered from his first love, cousin Kee
(who rejected him) I think the man was lying.



I think that the infinite void that Van Gogh is talking about became a well to draw inspiration and focus on his paintings - heck, what do I know.

If I were the painter, I know that somewhere in the corner of my mind would be a lingering thought that a 'Kee' would see my paintings. Pathetic, true; but in Indian world, we are conditioned by the movies to think Love does not have to be reciprocal. (sic)

Anyway just for reading all of above, here's one of the two paintings - recovered from Italian mafia - in 2017:



https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/vincent-van-gogh-stolen-paintings-museum-heist-view-of-the-sea-at-scheveningen-congregation-leaving-a7641346.html

TY Crystal for this enchanting chat.

Just came across a piece of machinery VvG had sketched



"Weaver" in Nuenen, 1883

Picture shows a hand loom, but as per a comment in the blog the scaling is such - 'weaver man smaller than the loom' https://www.vincentvangogh.org/weaver.jsp

I searched for a hand loom of today in India and the 'weaver man is smaller than the machine'!



interesting trivia, while textile weavers were invented in India / China in 4th Century, the power loom was invented by Edmund Cartwright in 1785 stepping up the Industrial Revolution.

In 1803, there were just 2,400 power looms in all of Britain.
In 1833, there was as many as 100,000 in British textile factories
In 1883, Vincent Van Gogh paints the outdated hand loom - ?

I don't think it was an outdated loom at all. You have to remember, he was Dutch, like me, not English which you are basing things on.
He had gone back to Nuenen, where his parents lived at that time, particularly because he had an interest in weavers.
Big part of the inhabitants of Nuenen were weavers, even the children had to weave. It was a very poor living, barely making ends meet in spite of having to work very hard.
He wrote to his brother about that, how bad & unhealthy the people looked, pale and skinny etc.
The other part of the population of Nuenen were farmers who also didn't make a whole lot of money but were still better off than the weavers.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think that part of the province Brabant was quite poor. I know of other places that relied on fabric and shoe making and people there being very very poor. Even today you can tell with certain things.

He was born in the west of that province, in Zundert. My dad and his wife lived there for 35+ years, near the house he was born in. I never visited it :/ I do one day hope to visit the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam to see his paintings.

Oh, that reformed church he did in Nuenen surprises me. My province Brabant is Catholic. I had no idea there'd even be a reformed church.
I must say I like his representation better than the real one, hihi. (I looked it up online).

BTW "Kee" is a very old-fashioned Dutch name, not in use anymore, pronounced "Kay".

And no need to thank me, I didn't do anything, you brought up this conversation and are being an inspiration :)

So was Vincent an epilectic?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxHnRfhDmrk

Nice song in the Video.
On this very interesting question 'epileptic'?

In Wiki there's a reference to psychologist Perry in 1947 who claimed that VVG's symptoms were common with those suffering from epilepsy.

Now we had an Indian psychologist here, who went a step further and identified it as a malaise or palsy in the 'inner temporal lobe'. Behind each ear inside the skull is a temporal lobe and if a string is run from the inside of one ear to the other, it would cut through this 'inner region of temporal lobe'.

But there's no record of any doctor examining Van Gogh's brain for any such palsy after his death in 1890.

Moreover, a painter suffering from epilepsy may not have the confidence of lifting the brush. The very thought of an impending seizure may trigger a seizure.

So the answer would be No.

But this brings up the earlier note by Motowndowntown


In fact, psychologists believe that genius like insanity; is an abnormality of the brain.

But why is VVG being singled out for madness? What about other painters?

Then it comes down to something much more than his bizarre acts like slicing off his ear (explained earlier).

The real Q is how did VVG paint the number of master pieces in a short period of time?


Here's the emotional sequence VVG went through starting from the rejection he received from Carolyn.

long spells of deep depressions from rejection, because pain is a valuable source of steady and serene energy; next, his rejection of God - leaving a void in his consciousness; disagreement with his father (priest) and leaving the family house; insufferable poverty, both his and of the countryside; the hopelessness of it all like his sheltering and eventually marrying his destitute model Sien; multiple hallucinations / imaginations to generate paintings; inability to sell his paintings to support Sien and the kids ... and yet, under all these conditions to turn out the enormous work he did ... and the news that his only source of support, his younger brother was engaged to marry; the thought of further humiliation when constrained to ask for money from a brother who would now have a dependent - all leading to the momentary lapse when he shot himself ...

If this be madness, then ...

Jaish, I can't stop staring at the Octagon Church.... the figures coming from it, the figures in the foreground, and how different they are.

Crystal, I want to go to that place, "The Harvest". Your play on color is inviting, and very positive!

Whether Vincent was or was not epileptic has nothing to do with him allegedly not being the full quid. If anyone suggests that I am personally offended.
I've had epilepsy when I was 30 and even though I have had no seizures for over 18 years now I am still on medication as it runs in the family.
But does that make me insane? Far from, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with someone's mental capacities.
I have a friend who has had epilepsy all her life. She was married, had a child, which she is now raising on her own, and has been for the last 9 years or so.
She works, is a mother, and very sane.

I don't get why studying he mental capacities has any relevance to his work.
His style is very different, unique. It's like any work of art: you either love it or you don't.
It is indeed very sad that the man had to lead such a poor life just because he was different in both his painting style and apparently not believing in god. I can understand that the latter in those days was enough to make you an outcast.

Thank you!

Crystal,
2 things come to mind and here's the background.

While thinking why VVG had not painted the 'low lands with the dykes network' it struck me that the Harvest was the result of the dykes network. But then why follow up the Harvest, with a terror rising picture such as the Wheat field - sky crowded out by crows (crows are not partial to grains anyway)?



First, did VVG paint the crows to symbolize how the taxmen ruined the farmers? (This is based on the potato famine in Ireland, Potato Eaters drawing and the touchy subject of the English rule in India - farmers were taxed based on land size, before the seeds were planted). Clearly, if a man can paint the Weaver, a symbiosis between man and machine then he can very well paint taxmen as crows!!!

Second, this gives us the real reason why we find some of VVG's paintings distasteful as well as why psychiatrists love to portray him as a bizarre brain. After all psychologists are also human and in their judgment, a painter is supposed to create heaven on earth and not portray life as hell; when, if I look out the window to the street (India), life for the multitudes is hell.

I think Perry the Psychiatrist (1947) based his judgment on VVG as suffering from BiPolar Disorder (hysteria) based on his World War II experience treating bomb shocked citizens and soldiers. In order to paint reality, artists have to be able to have a BiPolar ability to view the world. It is not a disorder but an ability of the genius when he can switch it on and off at will - (at least most of the time).

Carl Georg Lange, a Danish physician of those times says, periodic depressions without mania --- known today as major depressive disorder was extremely common in his practice. The error he made was to treat it as a disease and not normal reaction to reality. When one treats psychosomatic illness as a physical disease then one turns to juggle with symptoms like BP or as in Dr. Lange's case, how to reduce uric acid in urine.

If Motown is willing to revise his views then we may have a case after all.

I'm confused by your post, if that is the article?
What is your main point, the essence of what you want to convey? It moves all over the place.
I also don't get how you get to the conclusions you draw. You keep talking about India and Indian things and English rule etc. What does that have to do with Vincent and his paintings?
What does the Irish potato famine have to do with his painting "The Potato Eaters"?
Vincent wasn't painting about India, nor about political issues. The man was a very passionate and emotional painter, expressing things that at that moment held his interest.

The Wheatfield with Crows is very likely the field where he shot himself in the chest shortly after painting it. He was not doing too well by then, very depressed and that field resonated with that feeling. He wrote about that in a letter to his brother.
A man who's very close to being suicidal is not painting taxmen in the shape of crows.

A painter is also not supposed to create heaven on earth. A painter paints what he feels and what inspires him, or her. A painter is not supposed to do anything. Painting is about expressing yourself. It's creation.

I don't wish to upset you but I don't get your article.

On my previous post, you are right Crystal, it does go in many directions.

When I started, my interests were limited to just the prosaic paintings. like -> inside the restaurant, view from rooftop (not here) and the hand loom machine.
There was surprisingly an everyday quality of life in these, than mere draftsmanship.

Recently, I viewed Munch's Scream (and listened to his inspiration for it). This is what probably prepared me to view the Wheat field again.

Now after your note; viewing 'the rich gold in the wheat field and the sky overcast with crows' gives way to the more obvious interpretation as touched upon by you. Bear in mind, I'm new to this world. What a valuable lesson though!