Last night I went to the opening of Palm Springs 1st Animation Festival because it was featuring the movie LOVING VINCENT, a film I had read about months ago that featured one of the first films ever made where all the frames were painted ... not like the Disney cells but painted with oil on canvas in the style of Van Gogh.
Every painter knows about Van Gogh and either they admire him or not but at the end of the film, that was warmly received, it was noted that most art historians consider him the father of what we consider Modern Art. And personally I have thought that too and considered his suicide? as his being unable to continue after such stunning and nearly abstract works as "Wheat Fields With Crows." I thought he possibly didn't know what his next step would be. His final works were but a step away from the increasing abstraction famously pioneered by Cezanne and even more by Duchamp, the German Expressionists and then Picasso.
My love affair with Van Gogh began in the 5th grade. My father worked in a Schick Electric Shaver Shop in downtown Portland, OR and being artistic himself discovered the Portland Museum of Art had classes for kids. So, for several years before opening his store, he would drop me off at the museum for classes.
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| Starting in the evening STARRY NIGHT begins "Loving Vincent." This is the world's second most famous painting behind the Mona Lisa |
Portland for some reason got the traveling Van Gogh Exhibit from Amsterdam as they were building their first Van Gogh Museum to exhibit their collection. For weeks (it seemed) I would walk past these shimmering paintings for classes and gaze at them as I waited for Dad to pick me up when he closed the shop at noon. There is no way to describe the fascination these paintings held for me over the years. When finally, we landed again in Amsterdam I made it a point to see the Van Gogh Museum literally across the park from the Rijksmuseum which had only reopened a few months before after being closed for years to be restored.
We stupidly lined up with hordes of tourists in the rain to enter but as I expected it was like going to some secret inner sanctum. Even though I had read and owned many books about him, saw every exhibit that come to Los Angeles, I learned much about him ... things I noticed that were shown in the movie, to my surprise. More than 180 paintings are shown each more vibrant than the last including one that was finally authenticated after years hidden in a Norwegian attic.
I had read about this movie but never really gave it much thought. In the hinterlands of Palm Springs I never thought I would see it but, as I have discovered since moving here, the world seems to beat a path to our valley. During the Gay Pride weekend I met the organizer of the upcoming animation festival and we struck up a conversation where I admitted I loved Van Gogh. He encouraged me to come and with the card in hand came home, looked up the site but it didn't work well so I called and ordered a ticket. I am SO glad I did.
LOVING VINCENT in its creation is quite a feat. Ten years in the making and at a cost of $5 million, cheap in an era of $200 million blockbusters, it took 10 years to complete. A joint project between Polish, Dorotea Kobula, and English, Hugh Welshman, directors, it used 125 artists painting upwards of 100,000 original, hand painted canvases. Each second, of the 91 minute movie used 1200 canvases!
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| The faces of "Loving Vincent" each one taken from his actual paintings and woven into a story about his death. |
However, it is the art ... seeing paintings we all know move and talk to us that is in itself a stunning achievement. The story begins a year after Van Gogh's death as the friend of Vincent, the Postman Joseph asks his drunken and feisty son Armand to deliver Vincent's last letter to his brother Theo.
We follow Armand and enter a mystery about what happened to Van Gogh, yet to be truly answered.
Over the years there have been many theories about his death and they are explored here too. The most recent book felt that he was shot by some youngsters by accident and rather than blaming them shielded them at the cost of his life. A boy that tormented Vincent as he painted in Auvers-sur-Oise said near his death that he loaned Vincent a gun but never said whether he had accidentally shot Vincent or not. The boy was known to carry it and wave it around.
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| Madeline and Armand discussing Vincent as she takes her daily flowers to Vincent's grave. Was there a romance? |
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| Ryan Chapman at work on a canvas |
While I knew many of the theories it was the details that drew me in. In Amsterdam I saw a frame he created with strings to help him with perspective. In a moment of seeing him using it as he painted I instantly knew how he had used it. It was such details that made you realize the amount of time researching him was painstaking.
The paintings though are luscious ... Vincent's paint strokes come to life over and over again as the story is told and processes from the present in color to the black and white past. To see Armand and Madeline talking in the wheat fields as the crows fly around is to enter a movie like one of Woody Allen's where the actor steps out of the screen into our reality. It is simply that stunning! And remember, each motion as shown above required a painting so many were made as they discussed Vincent shown in one of his last paintings.
Each canvas such as this had to be painted up to 76 times. Can you image doing the same painting
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| A finished canvas. Note the change in head position from above! |
over and over again? And to make it worse it had to be extremely close to the others so the movement was left to changing positions in each canvas to show motion. So as you sit and watch the paintings move and shimmer, the bold strokes of paint are shown clearly in wonderful detail.
The irony, as it is discussed, is that while he thought that he was a failure in life, and in truth he had failed in just about everything else in his short life, his paintings show a vision that was simply unlike anything ever painted before. As his doctor, Dr. Gachet, notes, he was a genius and was pushing paintings into realms never seen before. A failed painter himself Gachet spent many hours secretly copying Vincent's work. Later historians had to sort out his copies from the actual works he removed from Vincent's room after his death. To be fair, at his death he donated his Van Gogh paintings to the Louvre where by then the genius of Van Gogh was recognized, at long last.
The creators studied his paintings for four years then spent 2 years creating each frame. They referred to his over 800 letters to Theo and had help from the Van Gogh Museum for accuracy and telling his story.
It is one of his final letters to Theo that sums up Vincent's story, written shortly before his death:
"We cannot speak other than by our paintings."
For an artist there can be no other way! If you get the chance please go see this film. I think that story aside, though I enjoyed the artistry of it, the life of these paintings will move you in ways you may not expect. He may have felt his life had little meaning but his art has certainly enriched ours!
Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where the emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! Be sure to check my re-opened ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. Many of the items talked about here are for sale there!
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