My Kid Could Paint That

Vincent Van Gogh, Almond Blossoms, 1890

By Nayoung Kwon

Troy,

I would always be brought down by rainfall, drenched in heavy rain, but you've always held my hand so that I don't fall behind. You are always careful and protective of my already damaged petals. If I hadn't met you I would have been lost, confused, and even become non-existent. Each season we spend, we create new memories that cannot be replaced. Our friendship grows each year like this tree... Almond Blossom, representing the beginning of spring and the new life ahead of us.

I am scared and worried...when winter comes, you will no longer be beside me. You will be going on an adventure that will determine your future, and I will stay here, the where we met and wish for spring to come. Until then... I will wait, wait until spring comes then we can once again create wonderful memories like we always did.

Editor's Note: Students were asked to give a painting to someone they cared for. These are their moving responses. 

Vincent Van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1888

By MEGAN GANNON

You walk down the street and a wiff of a horse and you are transported back to your riding days with your faithful Bugs. Colors and smells tug at you just as sights do. For me the color yellow represents the best and worst of life. In yellow I see, no I feel Trevor. I feel his eyes, his laugh, and his bright smile. I feel his wheelchair, his frustration, and his pain. 

With these works we will travel through pieces that utilize yellow to encompass natural, artificial, and complex feelings. There will be no discussion of the beauty of a sunset, a bumblebee, or mustard curd here. Instead an appreciation for a pigment that when everything seemed to be crumble, pulled me in and made me feel safe again. 

The color yellow helped me to understand my brother, his situation, and my own place in the whole mess. 

So like any great story let’s start with the beginning - Van Gogh’s Sunflowers

Sunflowers with its distinct lines finds the individual beauty in differences. I know that an appreciation for diversity may seem cliche, but hear me out. A kid in a wheelchair or with a mental disability isn’t a quota to be filled in a classroom, and Van Gogh helped solidify that for as a kid. The mix of wilted, blooming and developed flowers hints at the different stages of personal development. Individuals exist in a flux between wilting and blooming. The ebbs and flows of life. No matter what your mental or physical capacity you take joy and find sadness in things. Simple.

Van Gogh tackles humanity, creating harmony out of chaos by painting all the flowers in different shades of yellow. The yellow hues represent a sense of humanity felt by all, something intangible but strictly human. With the sunflowers placed almost haphazardly in the vase we see the unpredictabe beauty of life. You cannot manufacture it. The overlapping and crowdedness of the vase, the absence of a single stem indicates although distinct the flowers arose the same way. “A cut from the same cloth” vibe. 

Bursting with metaphors for acceptance, the beauty of diversity, and resounding love Van Gogh’s Sunflowers makes an argument for humanity. A subtle argument unlike the almost preach-like one you heard at the Kindergarten round-up rug. Not an obligated appreciation for difference but a celebration of it. 

Until he died, I did not see Trevor as disabled. I saw him as my older brother. Witnessing his daily struggle helped me to realize the individual battles that people fight. I cannot pretend to know what it felt like to be him, but I tried. I developed a sense of empathy, and I realized that he exists as a sunflower in Van Gogh’s vase as do I. Such a bond, such a connection, well, nothing can destroy that - not even death. 

Jean-Francois Millet, La Méridienne, 1866

Jean Francois Millet, famous for his paintings of farmers and field workers, sets a different tone in this painting, The Nap. The turmoil and hardships of France’s lower class agricultural workers is often depicted in Millet’s paintings through his own experiences. The paintings, which shocked the upper class that viewed them from the comfort of cushy Paris art galleries, displayed workers in the midst of their labor. The Nap shows a couple resting in the shade of a bale of hay as the day wears on. Tools for haying lay next to the couple as well as the man’s shoes. The scene seems almost intrusive, as if somehow we have stumbled upon the sleeping workers on their bed of hay and should back away slowly as not to wake them.

The most striking this about this painting is how un-striking it is. The muted colors and the hazy quality make for a peaceful sight. The style of the painting is similar to typical Impressionist style, with that characteristic out of focus haziness and defined brushstrokes. Millet painted the painting towards the end of his life at the age of 51 (he only lived to be 60) and the influences of other prominent Impressionists can be seen in his brushstrokes. The qualities of La Meridienne are a far move from his earlier works (such as The Gleaners, in which the figures are much clearer and brushstrokes less defined). Millet’s move towards typical Impressionism does not make his work any less unique; he still is among the only Impressionists to paint domestic laborers.

Vincent Van Gogh, La Sieste (d'après Millet), 1889

Vincent van Gogh had always been an admirer of Millet, often writing letters about his fondness for Millet’s subjects, and Millet’s influences can be seen in van Gogh’s early work. While committed to an insane asylum in the late 19th century, van Gogh made copies of twenty-one of Millet’s works. In this particular copy of Millet’s The Nap, van Gogh has made the painting his own with more saturated colors and more prominent brushstrokes, as well as switched the composition of the painting. Both paintings are beautiful, whether viewed separately or alone, however something about van Gogh’s vibrant rendition is even more captivating than Millet’s original sleepy creation.

Click Album Cover or here for Song

The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" and van Gogh's The Church at Auvers have one thing in common; they were created by some of the greatest artists of all time, yet aren't necessarily the artists' most famous works. Both the song and the painting have characteristics of their more famous siblings, yet commonly disappear amongst the greatness. The song "Eleanor Rigby" embodies this sense of insignificance and brought together the lonely listeners of a generation.

This painting resonated with me because it brought together the feeling of loneliness that the song represents, and can be a visual representation of the line in the song that says, "Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name, Nobody came, Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave, No one was saved.".I see the man walking back towards the church as Father Mckenzie, who only comes to Eleanor Rigby's funeral because it's his job. The brushstrokes of the path leads one's eyes toward the large, powerful church. To contrast it's size, the man is insignificant, and faceless. The facelessness adds to the feeling of loneliness and gives the impression that anyone could be that person.

Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889

I know when I get into a heated argument, my first urge is to cut off my ear and give it to a prostitute. But I hold back.Van Gogh, on the other hand, found that perfectly appropriate and really went with that urge. Gauguin exclaimed, “You crazy bastard! You have sliced off your ear!” and finished the argument with Van Gogh on top, one ear less than where he started. This self-destructive act to spite his competition and himself deeply moved his audience and shocked those around him. Looking at his Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear, the pain in his eyes is evident and unyielding. The cool, chaotic palate depicts Van Gogh’s inner turmoil as he stares blankly forward, colors spinning all around him.

The horse scene in Anna Karenina evokes these same chaotic emotions, from the tension of the race and the heartbreaking crash to Anna standing up and screaming for Vronsky, her wounded lover, in front of her husband and all of Russian high society. You want to scream with her, to stand and help her get to the man she risked everything for, but as a viewer you understand how self-destructive Anna is. She may not cut off her ear to spite anyone, but her entire life with Vronsky is in spite of her socially-acceptable life. Her end itself is self-destruction in its purest form, throwing herself under a train - the very thing that brought her to Vronsky in the first place.

Both of these examples show the peak of these real and fictional characters’ self-destructive tendencies, outside of their tragic ends. They may be destructive for different reasons, but both of their desperate acts in the heat of the moment are far too similar to the other. Anna’s terrified scream for the one she truly loves is the vocalized version of Van Gogh’s slicing off his ear to prove to Gauguin how much he meant to him in a desperate effort to get him not to go back to Paris. The piece shows the static aftermath of this act, while the scene from Anna Karenina is the exact tipping point into her downward spiral. Both are equally tense and foreboding. It makes me not want to know what happens to them, makes me want to save them from themselves… but I can’t.

The Sickness Unto Death 
A Musically Guided Exploration of Artist's Struggle with Mortality
Curated by Aaron Dupuis

Vincent van Gogh, Worn Out: At Eternity's Gate, 1890

A couple weeks back, as I  was driving beneath the emerald canopy of Blue Ridge Boulevard and tossing project ideas about in my head, "The Sickness Unto Death" by the Portland0based indie group Typhoon began to spill from my speakers. It had been some time since I'd heard the song, but just as the cold makes the old cut on my finger ache, it brought back the ache of buried memories. Teenage heartbreaks. Long drives in the dead of night. Relatives that I'd lost. But most of all, as is always the case, it brought back the fear that lurks in the back of my head, of many heads around the world. The fear that reduced me to tears time and time again as a child. The fear of forever. Of experiencing forever, whether I continued to exist or not.

And it was from this well of fear - beautiful, terrible fear - that I drew the inspiration for my gallery. I present to you The Sickness Unto Death. Through a synthesis of contemporary lyrics, personal experience, and the paintings of the masters, I will explore the efforts of the Artist to reconcile himself with human mortality. In doing so, I hope to capture the beauty of life and expression, rather than the triumph of death. Though the lyrics themselves will not play a great part in the body of the text, I felt it necessary to include them, not only to give the gallery a proper narrative structure, but also to illustrate the timelessness of the Artist's struggle with death. That being said, I would encourage readers to give the song a listen. It's a favorite of mine.

And so it goes:

Van Gogh first took down the image of the old man in the chair in 1882, using an aged war veteran he encountered in an alehouse as his model. He wrote extensively about the drawing, which he called Worn Out, and its eventual transformation into a lithograph. The writings in question detailed his thoughts about the emotional power of the human form, and the greater implications that it seemed to hold. "It seems to me that one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the existence of 'something on high' in which Millet believed, namely in the existence of a God and an eternity," he wrote, "is the unutterably moving quality that there can be in the expression of an old man like that, without his being aware of it." Fascinated and moved by his discovery, van Gogh began a long series of lithographs and drawings of the veteran, women, and hospital patients, all in the same pose.

Vincent van Gogh, Worn Out, 1882

For eight long years, van Gogh did not return to the drawings and lithographs he had made in that formative time of his career. And in those eight long years his life had drastically changed. He had found his artistic style, collaborated with artists like Gauguin, created what would be his most famous painting, Starry Night, begun frequenting brothels, cut off his left ear, and had started to lose touch with reality. By 1890, the hallucinations and periods of madness had grown so strong that van Gogh could no longer keep their effects from affecting his work. During this time there passed entire months of inactivity, months that took their toll on the artist's outlook and work. It was directly following a mental relapse that van Gogh finally revisited the old man in the chair. This time he forsook pencil and lithograph, and went straight for his paint.

Blues, greys, whites, orange. They play off one another, but they do not dance the way that the colors of van Gogh's landscapes do. Instead they seem to tremble. The man in the painting seems smaller, weaker, than his predecessor. And where the subject of Worn Out seems to be resting his eyes, the fists in Eternity's Gate look like weary guardians of tear-filled eyes. The men are not the same. At Eternity's Gate is more than a final play on an early artistic motif, it is a mirror of van Gogh's life. He has replaced the old war veteran. He is a veteran in his own right. A veteran of art. A veteran of life.

Two short months after painting At Eternity's Gate Vincent van Gogh shot himself in the chest while out on a walk in the wheat fields of Auvers. He lived a night and the better part of the next day, managing to make his way back to his room in the local inn, where his brother Theo comforted him and recorded his final words:

Vincent Van Gogh, Olive Trees, 1889

The final piece. Van Gogh's paintings in his later life are some of my favorite paintings of all. This period of his life, though dark, was also his most creative. By 1888, the year before the creation of this piece, Van Gogh's panic attacks and epileptic fits grew in frequency, one of which led to him chasing Gauguin around with a knife and threatening his life. Later that day he cut his ear off and gave it to a prostitute. After these fits became too intense and far too frequent, Van Gogh committed himself to an asylum.

Vincent van Gosh, Undergrowth With Two Figures, 1890

This is the final post of my junior year. That is foreign to write, so incomprehensible to think about, but it's here. It's been a vivid, chaotic, painful, brilliant blur of a year, and now it's coming to an end. The seniors are moving on to their futures, to college, to being grown-ups - whatever that means. They leave my class to step up, to become leaders, to wander through the undergrowth and grow into what we want to be. We have big shoes to fill, and even bigger holes in our hearts.

Vincent Van Gogh, Wheatfield and Cypress Trees, 1889

After spending a lot of time with this painting, I think I probably erred in my initial reaction. I usually like Van Gogh, and after learning about this painting and particularly the significance it had for him, I really like it. However, it originally held no appeal for me at all, so I decided to write about it.

Van Gogh painted this painting as part of a series shortly after leaving a mental institution where he had stayed after a series of mental breakdowns. These paintings built on a series of earlier works he had painted of the view into the meadows outside his hospital from the window of his room. Van Gogh’s new feeling of freedom bursts out of the canvas in the rich luxurious blue of the sky and the graceful curves of the cypress trees. I think now my favorite part of this painting is the sky. I love the color he uses; it seems delicate and fragile in its beauty. Looking at the sky makes me feel that I am missing something. The clouds fit into the sky in a pattern that seems to lie just beyond my grasp.

A horizontal line sharply divides the middle of the painting. The warmth of a sunny, windblown meadow contrasts with the cold austerity of the mountains beyond and the sky that lies above. However, the painting retains a sense of continuity. The reason lies in the lines—no change seems sharp when made with a series of sinuous lines that seem to flow like water across the page. I don’t really remember why I didn’t like this painting at first. I certainly can’t think of a reason to dislike it now.

Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night Over the Rhone, 1888

There is a mystery behind them. Yet, they encompass ideas of home and belonging. They are road map in the sky, guiding people back to the places they long to be, or leading them from places they wish to forget. Stars envelop the world under them in a blanket of warmth and comfort, although they serve as a constant reminder there are bigger things outthere. While gazing at Vincent van Gogh's 1888 Starry Night Over The Rhone, one wonders if they have found a Heaven on Earth.

The viewer stands on a side street adjacent to the river on the East side of the Rhone. The Rhone, a river that runs from Switzerland to Southeastern France, ends in the little city of Arles. The modern day invention of the gaslight reflects upon the calm waters, as two lovers take in the scene. The sky warns the viewer that they are minute in comparison to nature and all that surrounds them.

The encompassing sky scattered with stars appears to be the perfect backdrop for the return of Dante and Virgil. They are greeted by the one who has created the whole story, God. He creates a vision of pure joy and comfort as the two make their way up from Hell in Canto XXXIV,

To get back up to the shining world from there
My guide and I went into that hidden tunnel,

And Following its path, we took no care
To rest, but climbed: he first, then I-so far,
through a round aperture I saw appear

Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears,
Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars.

Dante inches closer to the one he loves, Beatrice, and the place where she resides. The dark and violent tale ends on a note of joy and optimism. Although Hell does exist, great salvation awaits Dante in the stars; however, his intentions of reaching Heaven are unclear. Dante finishes his trip to the underworld with a clearer sense of death only to be baffled again by the mystery of life.

Technological Effects on Society
Curated by Austin Krause

Van Gogh, The Potato Eaters, 1885

Vincent Van Gogh, Corridor in the Asylum, 1889

Starry Night Over the Rhone, Vincent Van Gogh, 1888

Vincent Van Gogh, Irises, 1889

Vincent van Gogh, The Potato Eaters, 1885

When Vincent van Gogh set out to create The Potato Eaters, his goal was not to generate beauty. By choosing rough figures and painting them in such an unattractive light, Van Gogh hoped to capture their hard work and labor. He wanted the viewer to see that the everyday worker earned their food by tilling it themselves and eventually getting to eat it. Unfortunately, The Potato Eaters did not receive the response Van Gogh had hoped. The public, as well as critics, hated the piece. They despised the hideous figures, even though Van Gogh had intended for them to be ugly. The viewers disagreed with the dark colors after becoming accustomed to Van Gogh's typically colorful palette. Potato Eaters was also the artist's largest piece. Standing 82 by 114 centimeters, the dull-colored work was quite substantial. After the unanimously negative response to Potato Eaters, Van Gogh vowed to never create such a large piece again. He returned to his usual repertoire of color when creating At Eternity's Gate five years later.

At Eternity's Gate, while containing a more sorrowful subject matter, received a more positive response because of it's bright colors. The man with his head in his hands is painted in rich cerulean and sits near a red-orange crackling fire.

It is clear that people continued to dislike The Potato Eaters years later. In 1991, the Vincent van Gogh Museum was robbed. Included in the stolen works was Potato Eaters. Roughly half an hour after the crime, the burglars ditched the priceless art and fled.