vincent, again

This past week a new theory and book about the death of Van Gogh made the media scene, with the alternate ending that Vincent did not commit suicide but was the victim of two teenaged boys who shot him by accident. The boys had been teasing Van Gogh all summer like teenagers can do if they encounter someone perceptive and unique, and the shooting was just the culmination of their young men behaving badly dynamic. Compassionate to the end, Van Gogh apparently covered for these youths and claimed to have shot himself, and with his troubled mental history the suicide wasn't challenged.

So if you also factor in the other alternate theory that Van Gogh didn't cut off his own earlobe and was covering up for Gaugin's lopping it off with a sword, the life of Vincent seems even more victimized. Not only did his wonderful talents go unrecognized throughout his 37 years, but he was physically abused by others. I'd prefer that he'd had the warped self-determination and righteous rage to have at least either mutilated his own ear or shot himself, but when you read his letters to his brother Theo and consider his deep longing to connect with others, it's not too far-fetched that he would protect those who had wronged him. Whatever the case, Van Gogh and his artwork continue to fascinate the world more than a century after his death -- no matter how that final moment happened to come about.

painting of the month

The Red Maple -- A.Y. Jackson (1914), National Gallery of Canada

sharp-dressed koloman

Koloman Moser (March 30, 1868 – October 18, 1918): artist, designer, craftsman -- and looking good here in his elegantly casual coat and hat







(1904 photo of Kolo by Friedrich Victor Spitzer, from Wikimedia Commons)

the artful theatre

Chicago's Goodman Theatre is presently showcasing John Logan's Red, with its reincarnation of artist Mark Rothko holding court on stage (I'm not calling him an Abstract Expressionist because he apparently didn't want to be minimized by a label). Last week would have been Rothko's birthday on September 25th, and then Mayor Rahm (I'm calling him by his first name because he just seems to be a first-name mayor) declared "Paint the Town Red Day" in honor of the play, and it was all a dramatically fun, art-centered crimson tide.

However, though I haven't seen Red Rothko yet, three diverse Chicago theater-goers I've spoken to have noted that the play that recently and quietly won their hearts is The Pitman Painters at the Timeline Theatre. Lee Hall of Billy Elliot fame is the author, and the story involves a group of British miners from Ashington who took a sponsored art appreciation class during the 1930s. Their instructor found the miners to be less than interested in the appreciation aspects of the lessons, so he urged them to approach the subject directly and create their own works. The men became the Ashington Group and ultimately found critical success and a patron, along with broadening their own horizons and sense of collective and personal identity. Yet they still stayed in the mines and true to their "pit" roots, and if this doesn't sound like the next The King's Speech-type movie adaptation that will net plenty of Academy Award nominations I don't know what does.

Here's a link to the Ashington Group's website, and the tiny pictured work is by Pitman Painter Harry Wilson (Ashington Colliery)

painting of the month

Autumn -- Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1573)

painting of the month

The Passage -- Kay Sage, 1956

urban gardening

Here are some excerpts from an interesting piece in the July 1925 issue of The Century, a magazine which seems to have been read by many intelligentsia of the day. "The Wildness of New York" is by Lewis S. Gannett, who seems to have been one of those same intelligentsia of his day and who lived from 1891-1966. And along the way he had a backyard garden, "literally within a stone's-throw of Brooklyn Bridge."

In his Wildness essay, Gannett was noting how despite all the brick and concrete, he could still spot plenty of birds, butterflies, grasshoppers and even bats around his 15 foot "square of grass," with a paper mulberry tree that "seems to enjoy the daily deposit of soot from the neighboring chocolate-factory." His house and yard too were formerly a "medicine factory" back around 1900, leaving his soil full of heaps of broken tonic and iodine bottles and brick shards. (Not much environmental concern during the Robber Baron era.) Vegetables were hard to keep going in the sooty earth, and only after a couple years of failure did petunias begin to thrive.

Weeds did well as they always do, and so did "asters and goldenrod, both indifferent to clouds of dust and soot," like they once bloomed in a "whole hillside...behind the old Tiffany Building to greet the New York Central tracks." Exceptionally pretty or unique plants tended to be stolen by the Gannett's neighbors. Some things never change.

Pictured: Meadow Flowers (Goldenrod and Wild Aster) -- John Henry Twachtman, 1893 @ The Brooklyn Museum