My View For Awhile: Whirlwind Edition
This short trip to the Windy City was a treat.
But first, off to pick up my newly framed altar cards from Silverstream Priory. They turned out very well.
I was eager to see an exhibit at Chicago’s Art Institute which featured Van Gogh’s three famous bedroom painting, together again for the first time since, I suppose, Vincent had them.
Here they are, on one wall together.
For a time, Vincent lived in a Yellow House in the south of France. He made three painting of an upstairs bedroom. This is where he had intended Paul Gauguin to stay (during his disastrous visit).
Vincent thought the bedroom was about the best thing he had accomplished.
Some years ago at the Morgan Library in NYC, I saw a letter that Vincent wrote to his brother Theodore before the arrival of Gauguin in which he sketched the bedroom.
Vincent, in his short years, lived in dozens of places and tried his hand at many different fields, including preaching as a Christian minister. At a rough spot in his life (which was mainly one big rough spot) he did paintings of nests and of boots, which suggests his concern (longing) for a place to be.
It was a great exhibit, all in all. I was pleasantly surprised at the many additional materials they brought in, such as prints from the era, both European and Japanese, which influenced him, along with novels, and paintings by artists who influenced him.
I very much like Vincent. I long for someone to do an exhibit of his religious paintings.
Having seen the great art, supper had to me made for my hosts.
And today we managed to fend of death by starvation.
And then there’s this guy. I thought you would enjoy him and his spiffy hat and shoes.
This is a copper Mesopotamian figure from c 3000-1800 BC. The Met in NYC has another that is quite similar. They are unlike anything else found.
Someone should make hats and shoes like this. I bet they’d sell.
