While in London, in the National Gallery, I had something I can only describe as a spiritual experience. As usual, I headed to the gallery that I knew would have Van Gogh's works in it, intending to soak in one of the four 'Sunflowers' he painted in 1888.
But although the painting was there, with various tourists taking pictures with it, I found myself drawn instead to the painting beside it - Van Gogh's 'A Wheatfield With Cypresses'. He painted it in 1889 while still a patient in the mental asylum in Saint-Remy near Arles, and the Wheatfields were what he saw from his window, as he looked out towards the Alpilles Mountains.
The picture I took of it gives it no justice at all, because in person (in painting?) it conveys such a force of the will to live. It is the sort of scene you come across that just strikes you at the heart and reminds you that even if everything is going to pieces, the wind in the wheatfields and the japanese cloud sky is enough to live for.
'I am hard at it, painting with the enthusiasm of a Marseillais eating bouillabaisse, which won't surprise you when you know that what I'm at is the painting of some sunflowers. If I carry out this idea there will be a dozen panels. So the whole thing will be a symphony in blue and yellow. I am working at it every morning from sunrise on, for the flowers fade so quickly. I am now on the fourth picture of sunflowers. This fourth one is a bunch of 14 flowers ... it gives a singular effect.'
I watched that painting for a good 20 minutes, just standing in front of it, soaking it in while I listened to 'The Mighty Rio Grande' (I think Van Gogh would have liked post-rock music) and noticed how every aspect of it, from the clouds to the mountains to the various trees and bushes, all had flecks of yellow in them. A unity of colour, I suppose, but also just a love of yellow that seeps out of Van Gogh and makes its presence felt. A love of yellow is something I would be the very last person to fault.
I wonder why he didn't sign it.
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