joie de vivre

At last I've finished reading the book about Van Gogh. Although I've gone through 200 of his paintings and drawings while reading the book, I still believe to understand Van Gogh fully I'd need to go through all 2000 in chronological order. That's about understanding him like a art critic. But I'm no art critic. I'd like to be a painter one day. For now I'm just amazed at passion of a great artist. In fact what he put in 10 years of his life (I say rather the last 2-3 years), none have done that in their entire life time. Even if he lived short, but he lived justified. And also it shook my firm belief that painting cannot be learned. Either you have it or don't. But now I believe that you have it always, it only needs to be nurtured and brought out. A man who barely gets the perspective right slogs for 7 years to bring out some of the greatest paintings in the history of modern men. No it's a tale that every aspiring artist should read. Not only painting but all forms of art - spun out of passion and woven with emotion. How I'm losing my words to describe what I feel right now.

May be I'll stop here and continue my daily life as it is. Meanwhile I'll gather my wits.

Lust for Life

I was going through Q&A sections in Yahoo, when I noticed a question on Van Gogh's sunflowers. Somebody had answered they were famous because they are full of life. I suddenly had an urge to go through Van Gogh's paintings. I was trying to suck in the work of a Genius. They are beautiful and he must have so much within him to produce such vibrant works.


Later one day I somehow reached and wikipedia article having a list of the most expensive paintings ever. The majority of the list comprised of Picaso and Van Gogh. There was a comment in it - "Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso are by far the best represented artists in the list. Whereas Picasso became a wealthy man, Van Gogh (supposedly) sold only one painting in his lifetime, The Red Vineyard, for 400 Francs (about $1600) to the impressionist painter and heiress Anna Boch." I thought why?

One of paintings from Sunflowers series by Van Gogh

I got the question the very next day. I was in office and discussing greater philosophies of life with one of my senior colleague. He suddenly said, "Read a book called 'Lust for Life'". He spelled out the name for me. I instantly did a Google search and found out this book was a biographical novel on the life of Vincent Van Gogh. What a coincidence! There was a movie too. But somehow I thought of reading the book first. I downloaded the pdf from a site. But before I read it I started reading his short biography from wikipedia. It was touching how an artist becomes what he is and dies because he could not become more of him. Think of genius dying in despair that his vision exceeds his ability to execute!

I'm just 10 pages into the book and will return to blog only after I finish reading.