Van Gogh: The painter of perfection

Smita Mishra

I grew up seeing three paintings which my father had brought from London and put on the walls of our library-one a yellow bunch of flowers carelessly decorated in an unassuming vase, a night scene with stars glistening above the earthly lights and another a strange jumble of colours, like some violent movement embossed on canvas. I always wondered what made Papa place such prosaic things in a vibrant and classy gallery, till the day I became old enough to understand the explanation… “They are Van Gogh’s, the man who made pain beautiful”, I was told. Van Gogh became dearer to me when I came to know one day that the painting of starry night which seemed so commonplace to me for so many years was actually painted by Gogh by placing burning candles on the rim of his hat to illuminate the canvas to give it a natural effect! Such dedication by an artist, who was branded by the world as base, corrupt and lunatic? Born in Holland as a pastor’s son Van Gogh’s childhood was influenced by a religious and cultured family atmosphere. But something some how went wrong in his life. He failed in almost every thing in life. An unsuccessful clerk in a bookstore, a hopeless art salesman, an overzealous preacher and a failed lover, Van Gogh remained forever sad and dissatisfied. He could not make even that person happy who loved him the most. His brother Theo, who supported Van Gogh financially and psychologically, ignoring his unforgivable erratic behaviour with fond indulgence, said once mournfully that it was impossible to stay with him. Possibly the profoundest influence on Van Gogh’s art was that of his friend Paul Gauguin. The yellow sunflowers which became his signature works and whose imitation hung in my library were painted to decorate Gauguin’s room. The duo painted on canvas made of jute and this accounts for the heavier brush strokes of some of Gogh’s paintings. But Van Gogh was an unfortunate man. He deprived himself of his loving friend’s company by attacking the latter with a razor in a fit of madness. Later he cut his own ear lobe with it and gifted it to a prostitute. His madness had no method, but his art had. Van Gogh, more than 200 years after his death still remains unreachable in the perfection of his art. He remains unsurpassable in his impassioned style, deep symbolism, intensity of colours, vibrancy of form and flexibility of contour. The most appealing aspect of his paintings is the sense of drama imbibed in them. One can almost feel the movement of expressions and the inherent thoughts of his subjects. The best example is his “ The Potato Eaters”. The ugly, poorly dressed peasants eating potatoes with their soiled and unwashed hands, under the dim light of oil lamp almost speak for themselves. A painter, who hated formal training in art, became one of the greatest teachers of Impressionism. More than Monet, the actual father of Impressionism, it is Van Gogh who is known for it. His initial shift from painting dark dull images might have been at the suggestion of Theo, but the dexterity with which this artist adopted the brightness, colours, visible brushstrokes and movement soon made him a master of it. And Expressionism of which he is considered the pioneer was actually a method to express his own bleeding heart. No wonder, Van Gogh distorted reality to create that powerful emotional impact. His short life of 37 years was in itself a painful paradox. His paintings that are worth millions today did not find more than one buyer in his entire lifetime. His finest works were produced in a span of just 3 years and that too when he was most seriously afflicted with mental illness. Van Gogh who shot himself “For the good of all.” was perhaps a victim of time and society. His inability to become a clergyman and his failed relationship first with Sien and then with Margot, who committed suicide after his family refused to accept her, affected his soft mind profoundly. His inability to strike a balance in real life immersed him deeper into art and still deeper into harmful intoxicants. Perhaps the painting which appeared to me in my childhood as a strange jumble of colours was actually the expression of his own surging mental storm…Van Gogh, the master of Impressionism would also have been the master of is life, if only his age realized his worth…