Meet "My" Vincent

"One and the same person may furnish motifs for very divergent portraits." -Vincent to his sister Wil, June 1888

Dealing with a historical character in a fictional way--whether in writing, film, or other medium--presents a big challenge. How to stay true to that person, how to give that person a believable voice. Van Gogh makes for a particular challenge: he's famous, but most famous for certain things (cutting off part of his ear). How to introduce this 'famous' person in a new way? I did not want to succumb to cliché, and I did not want his illness to be the center of the story, even though by necessity it's a large part of it. Lonely, tormented, grouchy, crazy Vincent--that's been done before. I wanted to share with readers--just like I try to share with my students in class--the Vincent I've gotten to know, who may be lonely, may be ill, but just like anybody, has other sides too.

Above my desk I have prints of two of Vincent's self-portraits, and each pertains to the Vincent I wanted to write about in "The Sunflowers." One dates from Feb 1888, just before he left Paris for Arles, one of two that presents him as a working artist. The popular image may be a crazy Vincent slapping paint on canvas in fits of delirium, but the truth couldn't be further from that. He was a diligent, dedicated artist, mostly self-taught, who never stopped trying new things, even to the end. He had a tremendous knowledge of art history and drew on those influences (Rembrandt and Japanese prints were favorites), and again contrary to myth, engaged frequently with other artists of his generation and counted them as friends (Toulouse-Lautrec, Bernard, Pissarro, Gauguin to name a few). Vincent's innovations in art have often been overshadowed by his illness--indeed, some of his innovations *explained by* his illness, when they should be attributed to his talent and willingness to take risks. "Starry Night" doesn't look the way it does because he was "crazy." It looks the way it does because of him *as artist.*

The other dates from autumn 1886, about 5 or 6 months after Vincent arrived in Paris, when he's still using a darker Dutch color palette. This is my favorite of the self-portraits: there's something about the eyes, an expressiveness, even a vulnerability, that draws me in. (Hence my disappointment when it was not on view at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag...) That's another point I wanted to explore: too often the illness obscures the man in the popular imagination of van Gogh. He has fallen into cliché. But people might be surprised to find the Vincent revealed in his letters: the one who proclaims, when madly in love with a woman, "I feel energy, new wholesome energy in me, as anyone experiences who truly loves." The one who writes to Theo how he's made a "nest" for Sien Hoornik, his live-in partner, "so that she can feel I have thought of her when she comes into a house with flowers in front of the window where she will sit." By the time Vincent went to Arles, he'd more or less given up on the idea of love, but when he was younger, his romantic dreams are strong. And it's not just about love: Vincent has this reputation of being surly, but he was optimistic more than pessimistic, even about his illness, and he possessed a idealistic view of the world. Even at his most melancholy in his letters, he looks for things to bolster him, his art if nothing else. There were periods in his life where he was quite happy, Feb-Nov 1888 being one of them, when he began to feel settled in Arles and ever more confident in his work. I didn't want a gloomy Vincent stalking the pages of my story when he was not perpetually gloomy, and I didn't want to focus on the dark and dreary. I wanted some sunshine in the story too -- not for nothing did Vincent paint those explosively sunshiny Sunflowers in August 1888. Sunflowers have the lovely quality of turning to follow the sun (the Greeks had a myth about that, which I'll share sometime), even when it is cloudy. So did Vincent.

Sold!

The Hague-period van Gogh drawing I posted about a little while ago sold yesterday at Sotheby's Amsterdam for 108,750 Euros (that's hammer price plus the buyer's premium). The estimate was 50,000-80,000 Euros.

Cyberfriends

Since I started blogging in November, I've been surprised how easy it is to make new friends in cyberspace -- folks that share one's interests and passions. Today I'd like to give a shout-out to Julianne Douglas at Writing the Renaissance and Catherine Delors at Versailles and More for their kind announcements of the publication of The Sunflowers. Both are historical fiction writers: Julianne's writings and blog are steeped in the French Renaissance, and Catherine is the author of recently published Mistress of the Revolution. Catherine's blog just won a Blog Award of Excellence: congratulations!

Some Very Novel News

I am thrilled to announce that my novel inspired by the art and life of Vincent van Gogh, The Sunflowers, will be published with Avon A--the trade-paperback imprint of Avon/HarperCollins--in Fall 2009. (Yaaaaaaaay!)

The Sunflowers is the story of Rachel, the prostitute in Arles famous to history as the girl to whom Vincent gave a rather grisly gift the evening of 23 December 1888. Sources tell us little about her: who was she? How did Vincent know her? Was he only her customer, or was there something else? The story begins with their meeting in July 1888 and continues until August 1890, covering the last two years of Vincent's life and the period when he created some of his greatest paintings. I started writing it in June 2006, after a trip to Paris and Auvers-sur-Oise, first as a bit of a lark...then I got serious! This is my first fiction publication, as up until now I've been solely a writer of things academic and scholarly.

Without turning this into an acceptance speech--I'll save that for the acknowledgment page!--I would like to thank my family and friends who have supported me on my journey and helped me find my voice; my agent, Barbara Braun, for finding my story a home; and the folks at Avon for giving it one. I am enormously excited, and I look forward to sharing the journey toward publication with readers of this blog. I'll be creating an author website in the months to come, so stay tuned!

[I should have illustrated this post with "Sunflowers," I suppose, but instead I chose "Oleanders" of August 1888, which shows not only Vincent's optimism and joyful spirit at that point in his life, but also his love of books. It's in the Met.]

Stormy Weather (Part Two)

As promised, a second storm-themed painting from Vincent's oeuvre, this one from the end of his career, indeed, the end of his life. "Wheatfield under Thunderclouds," also known as "Wheatfield under Clouded Sky" (among other titles), was likely painted between July 6 and July 10, 1890, only a few weeks before Vincent's death in Auvers-sur-Oise. You can see the difference in color scheme between this painting and "View of the Sea at Scheveningen" that I posted earlier in the week, the latter influenced by the Hague School and Vincent's exposure to Dutch art generally, this painting showing the vibrant colors Vincent adopted later in his career (and for which he's most famous). "Wheatfield under Thunderclouds" shows a tendency toward abstraction, too, and makes admirable use of the so-called "double-square" (50 x 100 cm) format, which Vincent used for the first time while in Auvers. This is by no means VIncent's first use of the wheatfield motif: wheatfields and activities associated with wheatfields (sowing, reaping) attracted him from the very beginning of his artistic career and followed him to the very end. For Vincent, the wheatfields were a metaphor for the cycles of life and death, and the motif exemplifies the latent spirituality present in many (if not most) of van Gogh's paintings.

If you visit Auvers-sur-Oise today (I didn't forget I was going to do some Auvers-themed posts too), you can wander the wheatfields Vincent painted, although it's impossible to pinpoint the spot in this exact painting. Up on the plateau above the town, the fields stretch for miles under the sky, and it's easy to feel the sense of infinity Vincent tried to capture in this picture. The painting itself is in the Van Gogh Museum, and although one can say this about every van Gogh painting, the textures and colors are so much more vibrant in person than they are in a photograph.

Speaking of Scheveningen

Since I brought up Scheveningen in my earlier post, here's a travel-tip for anyone who might visit The Hague: last summer, in a daytrip to the city, I visited the Panorama Mesdag between visits to the Mauritshuis (where lives the girl with the pearl earring) and the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (the city's modern art museum). The Panorama Mesdag is one of about thirty 19th-century 360-degree cylindrical paintings surviving today (another of the 30 is in my growing-up-town, Atlanta=the Cyclorama), this one done in 1881 by the Hague School artist, Hendrik Willem Mesdag. The painting had just been completed when Vincent moved to The Hague, and he admired it so much he mentioned it in a letter to Theo. Restored not long ago to its former glory, the Panorama Mesdag is a treat for the eyes: the subject is the fishing-village of Scheveningen as it looked in 1881, and the perspective is such that you'd swear you could walk right into the painting. The panorama is housed in a cylindrical room: you climb some stairs into it, and it's as if you're under a wooden beach-shelter, looking around you at the village and the sea. To add to the realism, the floor in front of the painting is covered with sand, etc. and the painting itself is slightly tilted. You can spot the Panorama Mesdag in Robert Altman's film "Vincent and Theo"; Altman filmed a scene with Vincent, Sien Hoornik, and Sien's daughter there.

Vincent's early style, as seen in "View of the Sea at Scheveningen," was very influenced by Mesdag and the other artists of the Hague School. While in The Hague, you can see examples of Hague School paintings at the Museum Mesdag (operated by the Van Gogh Museum, unfortunately I did not make it here) and also at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. The Gemeentemuseum also has a few van Goghs, but don't count on them being on display. I searched for them all over the building and was so disappointed not to find them (including my very favorite of the selfportraits) that I had to console myself with gooey chocolate cake at the Gemeentemuseum's excellent cafe.

Stormy Weather (Part One)

The rainy season in Florida has begun. It's amazing: the faucet gets turned off around October/November, we get minimal rain for months, then creak! The faucet gets turned back on in early summer, and every day somebody's dodging popup thunderstorms. The sea-winds decide who gets them, and if it's you, get ready for a soaking and a spectacular sound-and-light show. Not for nothing is Tampa Bay called the Lightning Capital of the World.

In honor of rainy season, I thought I'd post a couple of Vincent's storm-themed paintings, one from the beginning of his career, one from the end. Today's piece is "View of the Sea at Scheveningen" from August 1882, not long after Vincent ventured from only drawing into painting with oils. It's a small canvas (34 x 51 cm), one he intended as practice, not to be shared outside his studio. In fact, he left it behind, along with others, after leaving his parents' home in Nuenen in 1885. It made its way to the art market after his death, and eventually, to the Van Gogh Museum. (But see below...)

Vincent wrote to Theo about this and another seascape: "...I've gone out to Scheveningen several times to have a look at it [the 'angry storm' system attacking the Netherlands]. And brought back two little seascapes. There's quite a bit of sand in one already; as for the other, I had to scrape it off completely twice beause of the amount of sand that had gotten into it--it was really storming and the sea had almost reached the dunes. The wind was blowing so hard I could barely stand or see through the whirling sand." Typical Vincent, to brave the elements for a painting. (He would later put up with mistral in Provence best as he could.) When the Van Gogh Museum curators x-rayed "View of the Sea," they found sand imbedded in the surface layer of paint, testimony to Vincent's description of his experience.

I’d tell you to look for this painting at the Van Gogh Museum, but you can’t—it was stolen in December 2002 and has yet to be recovered. In early 2003, the museum was offering a substantial reward for information leading to the safe recovery of this painting and the other stolen in the same theft (“Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church at Nuenen”), and I wouldn’t be surprised if the offer was still good. Give ‘em a call if you see it.

For more on this painting, see the excellent catalogue, "Vincent van Gogh Paintings, Volume I: Dutch Period, 1881-1885, Van Gogh Museum," eds. Louis van Tilborgh and Marije Vellekoop (VGM, 1999), cat. 2, pp. 36-42.