Day 7 – Is “Crazy” (or being an Incan Savage) a Requirement for a Good Artist?

I got some coffee creamer yesterday, so I put the green tea away and switched back to coffee today. By the way, I love coffee but I don’t necessarily consider myself a coffee snob. Sometimes I buy really expensive coffee online, sometimes I pick up a bag of beans at Starbucks, and sometimes I grab stuff from the sale bin at Target. Today’s selection was one of those sale bin specialties – Target Brand White Chocolate Strawberry Coffee. If you’re wondering how the heck Target flavored their coffee like white chocolate strawberries, you would be justified in doing so. Let’s just say it smells delicious while brewing and tastes like chemicals when you actually drink it. Thank goodness I had a fresh supply of creamer to take the edge off a bit.

So today while drinking coffee creamer with a bit of coffee, I continued reading some about Post Impressionism. I browsed through some information on Paul Cézanne and Georges Seurat, but today’s real find came when I read a biography page on Paul Gaugin (find it here: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/gaug/hd_gaug.htm).  I have to admit today’s blog strays a little bit away from a review of the actual art and into gossip tabloid-esque territory… but I really can’t help it when I read things like “Descended on his mother's side from Peruvian nobility, [Gaugin] spent his early childhood in Lima. He would later misrepresent his ancestry to portray himself as an Incan savage” and “Gauguin encouraged van Gogh to paint as he himself did, from memory and imagination… rather than from motifs in nature. Their collaboration ended abruptly when van Gogh had a mental breakdown and cut off part of his left ear.” Seriously, is it a requirement that you have to be a little crazy to be creative? I mean, we have here a fake Incan savage and someone who cut off his ear. There’s a lot more interesting information in the biography- I encourage you to give this one a read. I can only imagine the US Weekly covers if these artists were alive and famous today. Is it necessary to be a little crazy to create this level of art, and, if so, is it worth it for humanity? Sure, we have some awesome art thanks to these guys, but maybe they would have personally been better off in a bit more stable of a career? I’m not sure there is a good answer to that question. You have to take care of yourself, but you also have to follow your passion, I think.

Gaguin poured a lot into his art. He started out as an Impressionist, but eventually moved past this and set the stage for Fauvism and Expressionism (which I definitely need to study some as I continue my art journey). He spent time living in Tahiti, which  influenced his painting. His masterpiece was painted while he was there, and is entitled Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (pictured below). It’s an allegorical painting known as a culmination of his art. I’m not sure how I feel about, except to say that the title itself definitely shows Gaguin had a troubled, searching heart. The painting seems busy and tense to me. I like the colors, but that is about it. Something about it moves you, though. Perhaps it is knowing that Gaguin was troubled. Although I’m not sure I understand the technical merit of the painting, seeing the title and feeling the haunting emotion behind the painting makes it hard for me to just dismiss it outright. Is emotion the most important aspect to art?

I’m not quite sure how to answer that question.

Xoxo, Diana

Day 6 – Post-Impressionists: Responding to the Impressionists!

Thankfully, I was able to get more sleep last night. It cooled down to the mid-50s here in Chicago, and the AC repair guy came, so Baby was a much happier sleeper and made it for a five and a half hour stretch. She’s starting to pretty consistently sleep somewhere between five and six hours at night, which is absolutely glorious after a few weeks of only an hour at a time. I always give people the side-eye when they tell me the newborn phase is the best. I mean, sure they are so adorably tiny and sweet, but they NEVER sleep a good stretch. At least not at night. At least mine didn’t. Maybe you had a unicorn baby.

By the way, the problem with the AC was that the guy who replaced our furnace in January (after the -30 Polar Vortex shenanigans caused the old furnace to give up the ghost) never reconnected some vital wires to the AC unit. The repair guy yesterday rolled his eyes and said the furnace repairman probably did this on purpose so he’d automatically have an easy service call in the queue when the weather warmed up. I didn’t bother telling Mr. AC that Mr. Furnace was from the same repair company as him.

But I digress. With a fresh brain this morning, and a fresh cup of green tea (hey, I’m out of coffee creamer and didn’t feel like black coffee), I sat down to figure out what came after the impressionists. Google informed me it was… drum roll please… the Post-Impressionists! I returned to the Metropolitan Museum’s website to learn more (check out their information on Post-Impressionism here: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/poim/hd_poim.htm). I’m really liking the Metropolitan’s educational content. They have easily digestible, well-organized chunks of information that I can read over coffee (or tea!) in the morning without feeling overwhelmed. There are other schools of painting that also followed the Impressionists, but Post-Impressionism is what I landed on this morning.

I learned that the Post-Impressionists were responding to the Impressionists by expressing emotions rather than just optical impressions. Their art had themes of deeper symbolism and abstract tendencies. Two names I recognized from the list of Post-Impressionists were Paul Cézanne and Vincent Van Gogh. Although I’ve never been much of an art buff, I always thought I liked Van Gogh’s work. I actually had the chance to visit the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam a few years ago, but the day I went it was unbearably crowded and very difficult to really enjoy the artwork. Reading through the Metropolitan’s page on Van Gogh, however (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/gogh/hd_gogh.htm), I realized that there are a few of his landscapes that I like, such as Wheat Field with Cypresses and The Starry Night, (pictured below), but other than that I don’t really like his style. For example, I really do not like Olive Trees or A Corridor in the Asylum (also pictured below). Perhaps it’s because I don’t like the abstract aspect of his paintings as much. I always had it in my head that I preferred abstract works, but comparing Van Gogh’s work to the Impressionist works I’ve been looking at over the last few days, I have to say I prefer the less abstract style of the Impressionist paintings. I think I need to look at a few more Post-Impressionist artists to decide, though, so that I get a better feel for the differences between the two styles. That will be my goal for the next few days!

Paintings I liked:

Wheat Field with Cypresses

The Starry Night

Paintings I didn't like:

Olive Trees

A Corridor in the Asylum

Xoxo, Diana