Van Gogh

My Iris

And yes :) it happens. It happened today

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How does he see himself? 

the most famous self portait

but he sees himself in other ways...as we do

or this

The museums wall paper matches the pallette and tubes of paint he used

in front of his easel is where he felt a little alive

He cut off his ear, checked himself into a mental asylum, and shot himself in the chest. He painted for just a decade (1880-1890) and here he is influencing art, artists and the way we see ourselves. 

People say it's difficult to know oneself but it's not way to paint oneself either

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Peasants he felt were the true connection to earth and they were his muse

young girl with a hoe

Rural Landscape

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The painters

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The potato eaters

As an artist, he wanted the Potato eaters to be his visiting card 

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Then there was modern art in Paris

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still life was a study in contrast of colours (yellows and purples) with the background (of the table cloth in abstract)

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Of trees and undergrowth. Hee found the extraordinary in the ordinary. Ande here...right here...I got your call.

sunflowers

harvest

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Van Gogh admired how Japanese transformed the word around then in their art. His stay in Provence, he saw himself as a monk, living an ascetic life,  devoted to his art.

And then the Almond blossoms

He painted this or the birth of his nephew Vincent. Son of Theo and Jo.One of his most heartfelt, patient works in his words.

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His first years was just drawing. And almost all...all!... of his drawings are in the museum van Gogh, Amsterdam.

The ditch

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The gas works

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By the siene

He used grid lines for his composition

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was fascinated with the colour wheel and contrasts - Here, it is green and Red

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And here he uses just one colour...yellow. This he called the tonal effect. He dedicated this to his brother Theo. 

He uses just 3 colours

Roses

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Van Gogh from the assylum

He drew inspiration from other artists.This was inspired by millier.

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Last days

weeks befor his death

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Other artists

Lacombe - red pines

Vangogh painted by Gaughin. The evening he cut off his own ear, Van Gogh had had a heated argument with his friend Gaughin. 

While Van Gogh painted from reality, Gaughin painted from imagination ( Vangogh was not actually painting sunflowers then) 

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And then there were this ewho were inspired by him 

Kees von Dongen

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louvre

I stopped at stories. The first was a collossal  bronze depicting the four countries France had conquered. Rome, Dutch, Spain and Brandenburg. Just last week, I got to know of a place of that name. The person next to me on a flight was from there! 

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The seasoned philosopher Diogenes, the cynic, who has given up the luxuries of life tells (off) the conqueror Alexander the great..." You're blocking my sun". Alexander is known to have said, "If I weren't Alexander, I would have liked to be Diogenes". 

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Amohitrite calms the seas. She rides a sea lion, holds a conch shell (perhaps to check for water quakes, decibel of sound...who knows). The chubby child cupid ( why are they all boys?) holds a coral. She's the wife of Neptune who lords over the stormy seas, taming with his trident,  the unpredictable wild horse which I assume depicts the weather.

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Baby Oedipus is hung on a tree and left to die because of a phopheay that said, he would kill his father one day. A hunter saves him and brings him up as his own.

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Raherka ( Ra - sun god) and Merseankh (she loves life). This couple show up from time to time. Who were they? Some things don't change

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This ancient urn with antelopes and flamingos brought flashes of flamingos from back home :)

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This is a book mark, studded with rubies and turquoise and pearl, for the book of Paris. What was the book for?

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The woman is valued. What makes anything or anyone valued? Is it finesse or fate? Is it by chance or design? 

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Hercules saves the mistress of Zeus from the monster Argon. The knife on his heel signifies he has beheaded the monster. Hercules then clips on his wings and flies to the heavens.

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First sight of the big E from behind closed doors ...er...windows of the Louvre 

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Nepoleon dined well

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De la Croix of suffering at the jaws of war

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Picasso

Its a rainy day and the sky still sulks

Each ye has different thoughts. Only one mouth can speak

Picasso starts painting in spiderweb style that plays on claustrophobia and arachnophobia....a reflection on constriction and dilemma of thoughts during the Spanish civil war and the imminent world war Ii

He painted his mother-in-law

His raw thoughts he put down in a sketch book. He had wooden figures from tribes of far away. He didn't know why but it's aesthetics spoke to him

Andre Breton says of Picasso in Composition au pappillion, "it's an extra pictorial composition" Taking everyday things and assembling them in extraordinary ways.

Venus du gaz is as much an evocation of catastrophe as a totem of hope

He used colours and people and perspectives he saw around him

Materials he used...anything he could get, assembling them in new ways

From sketch to painting

Creativity in his final years involved quick brush strokes people described as doodles of a frenetic old man. Before of course his genius was understood. One such is Tete dHomme.

And then he had babies...and a certain tenderness set in

A film narrated by Maya plays at the museum

Fantacy in domesticity

Paris - artists orangerie

The orangerie was built specially for Monet by the then government after her presented a painting to the prime minister/president. Two oval rooms in the direction of the meridian so there is maximum light, and there are 4 huge panels of Waterlilies in them. You can sut for hours...mesmerised. 

Rodin

Just outside the orangerie 

There's a private collection of  Guillaume Paul which housed many many names...

Renoir

Matisse

Cezanne

Rousseau

among others. A must see.

Paris

Notre dame is under reconstruction. The destruction caused by the fire in 2019 is painstakingly being repaired. The afternoon sun plays on the piano man belting out tunes to the rarher well behaved crowd. The fountain of St Michael is just around the corner and is worth the visit. There is a big crowd waiting to get into the Chapele. There are artists who will make a portrait, caricature, charcoal sketch of you. Old (really really old) books are sold to collectors who still care. The cafes are open for business. Smell of crepes wafts around like a hungry pet. Cute French berets (made in China) are sold in rows of stalls. Boats of tourists are taking a river cruise, like I did with my mum and dad many many years ago. It's different now. I'm different now. 

The pretzel of trainlines is easy to use. And people...Oh isn't it always about the people...are quite lovely really. Very patient with the wide eyed tourist. And they do speak English! 

Ravenna

Ravenna ... It's a small town with lots of little chieses. Wisteria grows everywhere, the lilac cones dropping in multitudes from walls and terraces.
Ravena is known for mosaic work and each of its citizens has a piece of mosaic for a name plate. There are local artists who have their own studio, making modern quirky versions of church classics. The one we visited was happy to share his skills, give away secrets of material he uses and has an exhibition in Japan next week.
The church at Ravena Basilica di Sant Appollinaire nuovo has immensely writeaboutable çeiling mosaics.

This town has a sense of humour. Outside churches, on electric control boxes, an artist has fun with the holy mother of God. In another church, two guys are sorting olive branches in preparation for an Easter event. We get talking and they say that the church is a 'fake church' as in... The original was destroyed by an earthquake and the church then decided to raze it to the ground and rebuild it.

You find busy lunch places with vegetarian vegan food and you could pay by the weight. Of course with wine and desserts.. cobbled streets, wanderings, poplar trees, wisteria, brick walls, pre-roman remnants, and then the churches and the mosaics. The Baptistry is built on older Greek pre Christian temple.

It's good weather and the bus to classe cruises. Classe comes and goes and the driver, with a benevolent turn of mouth, says he can't stop now. Huh? What? Apparently he has to be told to stop.. ahead of time. So we land up at this one cafe town with no way back. Then in that lone cafe, there was this girl. I explained in the little Italian I know... Aided by a series of gesticulating limbs...we  needed to get to classe. No bus. No taxi. Walking on highway was forbidden. A customer came up and in a second offered to drop us to classe ... 10 km away. He went home, picked up his car, cleared it and drove us... He'd spent a month in Calcutta... And said he'd been stranded and was helped and that what goes around comes around...

That was one for faith in humanity.

Classe has a solitary church with its ceiling help up by wooden beams.  light filters in through high windows and hits the golden mosaic... Somehow.. today it was more about about men than about the gods...


That's Ravenna.
For everything else... There's always

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravenna

April 2019

Basel again

There's a light installation at Basel SSB. It makes chirping sounds. Does remind me of the time I was here last time...i sat outside under a real tree and had thoughts of. On the other side of the station is a wall showing the tram stop...live. isn't that cool. I have to take tram number 8. If you've booked an Airbnb, Basel allows you to travel free to reach your booking. Isn't that cool too? :) It's raining and my fingers are starting to protest in the cold. As I say this, i get a text. A minute later a lady walks by with a big M bag from Migros. There you are :) Yesterday Italy recorded fifty thousand cases. And a 1000 flights have been cancelled. Maltese Falcon...stay safe.