23 September 2020
Van Gogh’s deep reality
“I think that if one has tried to follow the great masters attentively, one finds them all back at certain moments, deep in reality, I mean one will see their so-called creations in reality if one has similar eyes, a similar sentiment, as they had. And I do believe that if the critics and connoisseurs were better acquainted with nature, their judgment would be more correct than it is now, when the routine is to live among pictures, and to compare them mutually. Which of course, as one side of the question, is good in itself, but lacks a solid foundation if one begins to forget nature and looks only superficially. Can’t you understand that I am perhaps not wrong in this, and to say what I mean even more clearly, isn’t it a pity that you, for instance, seldom or hardly ever go into those cottages or associate with those people or see that sentiment in the landscape which is painted in the pictures you like best? I do not say that you can do this in your position, just because one must look much and long at nature before one becomes convinced that the most touching things the great masters have painted still originate in life and reality itself. A basis of sound poetry which exists eternally as a fact and can be found if one digs and seeks deeply enough.”
Vincent Van Gogh to his brother
There is always such clear wisdom in his letters. Van Gogh had the great gift of compressing complex ideas into far simpler ones and rendering them more digestable. I like when he describes how “the great masters” of the past can be found, “in certain moments” and in “deep reality”. This is wonderful, and I think it’s true for all original painters or poets of any period. That “deep reality” of which he speaks is connected to nature in one way or another. And he goes on;
“..if the critics and connoisseurs were better acquainted with nature, their judgment would be more correct...”
What I think he means is that what is essential (in this case an oil painting) is a profound understanding of the way both nature looks, and operates. I think he speaks of the mysterious manner wherein nature can appear both abstract and solid when seen through a holistic vision that is already sufficiently abstract in the painter’s imagination. It isn’t just about looking at ‘scenes in nature’ only to then reproduce them through technical virtuosity like back in the 19th century Salon. I also appreciate what I think Van Gogh correctly insinuates in his letter, that if critics and painters actually went out to live and work in nature they would better understand how it functioned. In France, but for few exceptions, The Barbizon School of Painters was perhaps the first movement that pushed artists out ‘en masse’ into the wild landscape around the Fontainebleau forest. Up until then Paintings were made in studios far removed from the grit of the earth. Van Gogh was deeply influenced by many of these painters. Me too, when I first came to France.
But Van Gogh also implies that one’s understanding deepens the more one ‘digs and seeks deeply’ enough. It isn’t just about using one’s eyes, but by creating something that derives from the visual intelligence aquired through looking long and hard at the way that Nature operates. This boils down to Light, Colour, and Form.
Though I approach art as a European, and closer to Van Gogh’s sensibilities, I’m still a painter, not a teacher or an academic, so I cannot vouch for anything more than my own personal understanding. For nature is a big word in today’s world and it’s one that can trigger any number of responses in the Post-Modernist world of Art in which we all live, and where at the same time, everything is up for a nuanced interuptation. Personally, I can neither speak for African Art or South American Art, nor Asian, although I love them all, and I’ve seen lots over the years. I came into the Painting world through the portal of Europe culture so my eyes are therefore conditioned through a European set of lens.
This picture from last week was the last of three studies and it’s one that I liked. It had been a lovely bloom, though understated, as if it had been run through a strainer. I was able to follow it cautiously into the night. Unlike the first two, this one has a lot of paint on it because I battled with a few substantial changes as the light dropped away. But, I like its simplicity, it has a carnel vibe to it because it reminds me of a rare steak under a muted sky the colour of Béarnaise sauce. I say this with mild nostalgia as someone who ate meat in my previous life. Here, it appears just thick enough to compliment the red sky just beneath it. The sea had gone dark, an ominous deep violet which appeared almost black as dusk settled in.
It’s not the sort of painting that might appeal to someone looking for a naturalistic seascape because it’s surely not very picturesque. I think one needs an imagination to see it not just as an abstract picture, but simply as the sea and sky themselves at dusk. It came to me after years of looking at the motif in all seasons. This kind of devotion to a motif is what I think Van Gogh was basically writing about. Of course, we share many of the same sensibilities because I was essentially a student of his, one of many I think. Because of that, I learned to see the landscape through many of his own paintings. The key thing for me was to absorb what I could from all my teachers, then go out in search of my own landscapes by exploring nature’s deep reality. In this series at the sea, hopefully I’ve mapped out a path in the sand with my own footprints.
There is little more to say except that it pleases me like a marathoner who has finished the course in a reasonably decent time.
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