Vincent Van Gogh :
Starry skies
Starry skies
You had always dreamt of painting a starry Night.
The first you painted actually stood for the background for the portrait of
your friend, the painter Boch.
It was with him that you used to go to that Café at the Forum Square,
in Arles.
In the light of a pavement, you painted that awesome view of The Rhône…and
also the Café where you were staying at, in three nights.
In Saint Rémy, you achieve that kind of hallucinated painting…
Then that lovers’walk in the moonlight…
Aersten
Borinage
From the moment you heard of the Borinage, you felt attracted to it... You
sent Theo the description found in a book and you made that drawing... What
were you going to do in the Borinage? Was the misery of that black country
that you found so attractive? Or of those inhabitants “who work in darkness”?
When you reach that place, when you see its poverty and the unbearable, hard
life...led by these miners who see daylight on Sundays only, the cold, disease,
hunger... You get rid of your clothes, you become poorer than them. When you
sink in a state of utter destitution and distress, You look for a gleam of
light, which you will find underground... You will dive into the depths of
the mine and of yourself... You will surface different, with a new desire...
“ Down there I saw a gleam, not bigger than a star in the sky”.
You start drawing night and day... You have made up your mind, you want to
devote your life to painting. “I will resume drawing, and then it seems
to me that everything has changed for me, and my pencil becomes obedient”...