Van Gogh

I had my coffee and run this morning. I showered, packed up my things, and walked to the train station. I needed art.

I love that the National Gallery is a free museum. For all the trouble we have with getting things right in this country, this is one thing that we definitely got right.

I recall trying to visit the museum when I first returned to the U.S. It was impossible for me. The art stimulated such emotion, and I was already raw. I couldn't tolerate it. It was a painfully loud noise in my head.

Today, I felt hungry for the images and textures and shapes and colors. I needed to get to the museum. I couldn't drink in enough. I was surprised to discover that so much of what I used to love - the calm precision of Vermeer; the elegant brush strokes of Sargent; the brooding light and shadow of Rembrandt - none of these could satisfy me the way I needed. Even Monet's fluttering play with color and texture seemed tame and prissy.

I found what I needed in another room. I needed Van Gogh. I needed his bold, restless lines. I needed his unpretentious self examination. I needed his manic disproportionate sense of color and contrast. I needed the heavy sorrow and emotion belying the simple beauty in a vase of roses.

I first visited the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam when I was dating Hans. I wasn't a particular fan of the Dutch artist. I preferred representative realism. Later, I took my mother to the museum because it was a nice thing on the "to do" list in the Netherlands. I was very depressed at the time, and I believed that it was largely pointless to visit an art gallery in this state. I generally can't feel any beauty when I am depressed. But my experience was utterly different. The paintings moved me in a way I never could have predicted. I felt them. At a painting of black birds flying over a harvest field, I began to weep. I believe that there is an emotional truth in Van Gogh's work that can't be adequately described. It has to be felt. And I wonder if it is ever possible to feel it if you are in a "normal" state of emotion?

The Van Gogh museum is one of the few real-world locations I visit in my dreams. Sometimes I dream about Pozzuoli or Limbe. More often than not, the landscapes of my dreams are unknown to me. But these are stand-outs. Why would I find myself back there?

I think about Vincent's tormented life. I think that a normal person was not able to feel what he felt. So he tried to show us. It was not a perfect translation for emotion any more than a book is a metaphor for actual human experience. But the man certainly came close. I wonder if the art served to give him the modicum of peace that it is able to impart to me.