Vincent Van Gogh
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I am not an expert nor a professional on arts, especially on western paintings, but for me the "Voyage into the Myth," the first major exhibition of Vincent Van Gogh's works at the City Museum of Fine Arts in Seoul (November 24, 2007 through March 16, 2008) was a surprise and a good food for some thoughts about art and life in general. I knew Van Gogh was a big name in the world of western painters, but I did not know he had so many Korean fans until I went to the show. Due to the huge audience that crowded the place I had to wait outside more than half an hour before I saw some of the original works by this legendary Dutch painter.
Standing in a long and labyrinthine queue I fell into some doubts about the contents of the exhibition. Despite the fanfare of publicity on the show I knew I would not see his best works well-known to us. These works have all been collected by the famous museums and private collectors throughout the world, and they (the owners of the works) would not be easily persuaded to part with any of these priceless works even for a moment. I would not myself, if I owned one.
Nonetheless, I was very curious about what I would see at this exhibit. Fortunately I had already seen several of his famous paintings during my travels abroad: "The Portrait of Doctor Paul Gachet" at Louvre, "The Bedroom at Arles," "The Church at Auvers," "Pere Tanguy" and Self-Portrait" at Orsay in Paris, and "The Cypresses" at Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and one of his "Sunflowers" at Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago. I tried not to harbor too much expectation for the show, but I had a particular work in mind and hoped against hope it would be included among the works being displayed.
It was one of his "shoes" paintings - a pair of black, worn-out and dirty-looking shoes on the point of being discarded with their strings loose and tangled. I had come across this painting by chance in a book first and came to like it and my appreciation for it increased as time went on, but I did not have the luck to see its original until now. My unlikely hope to see it at this exhibit sprang from the simple fact that most of the 67 works to be displayed at this show were said to have come from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where the said painting has its permanent residence.
As I had vaguely anticipated, most of the works displayed were new and strange to me. They were Van Gogh's early paintings, drawings, and sketches that demonstrated how he started and developed as a painter. For the experts on arts, scholars on Gogh's paintings or for professional painters themselves these works must have provided something very important and valuable clues to better understanding of Van Gogh's world of arts, but for me who just wanted to see and feel something beautiful, pleasant and good, they turned out to be more of education than of pleasure. They required something more than or other than my eyes, mind and feeling to enjoy them.
Frankly speaking, I do not have particular fondness for Van Gogh's works except for a few of his landscape paintings. Although I admit his genius, passion and originality as a painter, but his works are not the kind of things I like. With their unnatural as well as unrealistic descriptions and proportions, broad strokes of brush, and too thick and excessively strong colors (especially yellow), they make me uncomfortable and uneasy. They constantly remind me of his unhappy and tragic life, and even of his insanity. They make me think more than please.
But, in his paintings of shoes I see what I like - realism, physical as well as mental health and steadfastness - a rare quality and virtue to be found in Van Gogh's works and life. I feel secure and safe before his paintings of shoes.
It is quite interesting that Van Gogh, as a painter, was interested in painting the shoes as much as in the sunflowers. If Van Gogh tried to find and express love and life in the sunflowers, which he could not in his real life, he must have found and felt much affinity and sympathy in the shoes he was wearing, particularly in the wornout shoes. In them Van Gogh must have seen another portrait of himself. For him, practically as well as ideally, the shoes were a symbol of poverty, misery and struggle and endurance - a good contrast to and balance against the gaudy but ephemeral sunflowers.
I tried to find out the black "shoes" I had in my mind among the displayed pieces. It was not there as I had expected. There was a pair of shoes, nonetheless, a footgear, that I had never seen before anywhere. I had seen more than six pairs of shoes Van Gogh had painted, but this one was definitely not the one what I hoped to see here. It was definitely one of his early works - a study work, and also a good testimony to Van Gogh's interest in the object from his early stage of painter's life.
For many people Van Gogh is more interesting for his life than his works. During his short life (he died at 37) he was miserably poor, lonely and unhappy, and definitely unsuccessful as a painter. Among so many works he has painted during his lifetime only one piece is said to have been sold. He was emotionally unstable, often dangerously. One day he argued violently with one of his best friends, Paul Gauguin, also a painter, and tried to attack him with a razor blade. He cut off a piece of his own ear in order to punish himself for this insane act. He eventually ended his life by shooting himself with a pistol. In a word, there was nothing laudable in Van Gogh's life except for the fact that he had painted what he liked to paint like a mad man in his own particular as well as peculiar way and style, and died leaving these works behind that brought him a posthumous fame.
And, we were there to see, enjoy and be happy with the works the poor artist Van Gogh had left. I could not be so light and gay before his works. Am I not a cold and cruel man if I could be happy before these works all done in such an agonizingly tortured state of mind? Art is long and life is short, they say. It is a truth, as I see his works here in Seoul 100 years later, but what is the use of immortality, if the artist had lived such a miserable and unhappy life? For whom is the immortality? For us or for Van Gogh? Would it not be better for him if he did not paint and lived like us? Who told him to be a painter? Is Van Gogh aware of this exhibition? The children who were ignorant of and indifferent to the agony and tragedy of the artist were shouting and running around the museum hall - happy and gay just for having a day out with their parents.
(March 24, 2008)
Standing in a long and labyrinthine queue I fell into some doubts about the contents of the exhibition. Despite the fanfare of publicity on the show I knew I would not see his best works well-known to us. These works have all been collected by the famous museums and private collectors throughout the world, and they (the owners of the works) would not be easily persuaded to part with any of these priceless works even for a moment. I would not myself, if I owned one.
Nonetheless, I was very curious about what I would see at this exhibit. Fortunately I had already seen several of his famous paintings during my travels abroad: "The Portrait of Doctor Paul Gachet" at Louvre, "The Bedroom at Arles," "The Church at Auvers," "Pere Tanguy" and Self-Portrait" at Orsay in Paris, and "The Cypresses" at Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and one of his "Sunflowers" at Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago. I tried not to harbor too much expectation for the show, but I had a particular work in mind and hoped against hope it would be included among the works being displayed.
It was one of his "shoes" paintings - a pair of black, worn-out and dirty-looking shoes on the point of being discarded with their strings loose and tangled. I had come across this painting by chance in a book first and came to like it and my appreciation for it increased as time went on, but I did not have the luck to see its original until now. My unlikely hope to see it at this exhibit sprang from the simple fact that most of the 67 works to be displayed at this show were said to have come from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where the said painting has its permanent residence.
As I had vaguely anticipated, most of the works displayed were new and strange to me. They were Van Gogh's early paintings, drawings, and sketches that demonstrated how he started and developed as a painter. For the experts on arts, scholars on Gogh's paintings or for professional painters themselves these works must have provided something very important and valuable clues to better understanding of Van Gogh's world of arts, but for me who just wanted to see and feel something beautiful, pleasant and good, they turned out to be more of education than of pleasure. They required something more than or other than my eyes, mind and feeling to enjoy them.
Frankly speaking, I do not have particular fondness for Van Gogh's works except for a few of his landscape paintings. Although I admit his genius, passion and originality as a painter, but his works are not the kind of things I like. With their unnatural as well as unrealistic descriptions and proportions, broad strokes of brush, and too thick and excessively strong colors (especially yellow), they make me uncomfortable and uneasy. They constantly remind me of his unhappy and tragic life, and even of his insanity. They make me think more than please.
But, in his paintings of shoes I see what I like - realism, physical as well as mental health and steadfastness - a rare quality and virtue to be found in Van Gogh's works and life. I feel secure and safe before his paintings of shoes.
It is quite interesting that Van Gogh, as a painter, was interested in painting the shoes as much as in the sunflowers. If Van Gogh tried to find and express love and life in the sunflowers, which he could not in his real life, he must have found and felt much affinity and sympathy in the shoes he was wearing, particularly in the wornout shoes. In them Van Gogh must have seen another portrait of himself. For him, practically as well as ideally, the shoes were a symbol of poverty, misery and struggle and endurance - a good contrast to and balance against the gaudy but ephemeral sunflowers.
I tried to find out the black "shoes" I had in my mind among the displayed pieces. It was not there as I had expected. There was a pair of shoes, nonetheless, a footgear, that I had never seen before anywhere. I had seen more than six pairs of shoes Van Gogh had painted, but this one was definitely not the one what I hoped to see here. It was definitely one of his early works - a study work, and also a good testimony to Van Gogh's interest in the object from his early stage of painter's life.
For many people Van Gogh is more interesting for his life than his works. During his short life (he died at 37) he was miserably poor, lonely and unhappy, and definitely unsuccessful as a painter. Among so many works he has painted during his lifetime only one piece is said to have been sold. He was emotionally unstable, often dangerously. One day he argued violently with one of his best friends, Paul Gauguin, also a painter, and tried to attack him with a razor blade. He cut off a piece of his own ear in order to punish himself for this insane act. He eventually ended his life by shooting himself with a pistol. In a word, there was nothing laudable in Van Gogh's life except for the fact that he had painted what he liked to paint like a mad man in his own particular as well as peculiar way and style, and died leaving these works behind that brought him a posthumous fame.
And, we were there to see, enjoy and be happy with the works the poor artist Van Gogh had left. I could not be so light and gay before his works. Am I not a cold and cruel man if I could be happy before these works all done in such an agonizingly tortured state of mind? Art is long and life is short, they say. It is a truth, as I see his works here in Seoul 100 years later, but what is the use of immortality, if the artist had lived such a miserable and unhappy life? For whom is the immortality? For us or for Van Gogh? Would it not be better for him if he did not paint and lived like us? Who told him to be a painter? Is Van Gogh aware of this exhibition? The children who were ignorant of and indifferent to the agony and tragedy of the artist were shouting and running around the museum hall - happy and gay just for having a day out with their parents.
(March 24, 2008)
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At the time when this column appeared in the Korea Times,
I wanted to refrain from being the first replier in this column.
Waiting other comments, I made a trip to Ann Arbor, Michigan
to give a postpartum and postnatal care to my daughter and
her second grandson.
My heart always goes to him whether I was reading "The Moon
and Sixpence" or not (because he used to be Paul Gauguin's friend),
when I was listen to the song "Starry, Starry Night" and reading
a novel about him.
When seeing "Pere Tanguy", we never miss to find the Japanese
drawing in the back-ground while Korea remains unseen to
the world as a hermit kingdom.
Your column is always interesting, giving some mental foods
to us, I would say.
After I found this column without comments attached, I tried
to say a word, but I kept from doing it over and over again.
I think any addition to your essay is redundant!
I thank you belatedly.
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Dr. Kang;
I feel always amply rewarded for my work, whenever I come across a favorable comment like the one you make on my poor essay above. You are one of the few good readers of my essays in the world who make me continue this laborious as well as thankless task.
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I appreciate your kindness very much, prof. Lee!
I'd like to stand corrected.
Among my above mentioned sentences, I found some mistakes.
1) to give a postpartum and postnatal care to my daughter
and her second grandson ㅡㅡㅡ>to give postpartum and
postnatal care to my daughter and her second son.
2)when I was listen to the song ㅡㅡㅡwhen I was listening
to the song
Thank you!
