{"id":1179,"date":"2016-06-28T09:30:18","date_gmt":"2016-06-28T09:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=1179"},"modified":"2016-06-28T09:30:18","modified_gmt":"2016-06-28T09:30:18","slug":"van-gogh-as-witness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=1179","title":{"rendered":"Van Gogh as Witness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"photo-4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"photo-3\"<\/a>It\u2019s been a week of emotional tension in Europe. \u00a0 The civil dissonance feels like wounds that compound wound that increase the wounded. \u00a0 No matter what time I would have driven the French countryside around St. R\u00e9my and Arles which Van Gogh painted extensively, I would have felt his presence. \u00a0Now, the mark of rejection, desire and fragility bodily screams.\u00a0 As the mistral blows, there are Van Gogh\u2019s \u201ccanvases\u201d everywhere you look.\u00a0 Gnarly olive trunks shoot from rocky soil, their leaves twisting pale, then dark in the wind. The plane trees leap against the narrow sides of the road, their trunks like living spirits, almost choking the lane.\u00a0 The columnal cypress, splitting and swirling, flattened against the blue sky.<\/p>\n

In St. R\u00e9my, we went to the asylum, St. Paul de Mausole, where Van Gogh spent 53 weeks near the end of his life.\u00a0 Walking through the old building, we were met by courtyard fully fleshed with blooming lavender.\u00a0 Most of us fell quiet.\u00a0 The geometric proportion was perfect as was the balance of color and scent.\u00a0 Very quietly, it showed us the twisted nature of our anxiety, our twitchy way with our cell phones. \u00a0It made a contrast with our impulses to exclude others – artists, the ill, misfits. \u00a0The lavender field echoed a gravity that a reproduction of Van Gogh\u2019s Piet\u00e0, just inside the wall, brought on.<\/p>\n

We see through Van Gogh\u2019s eyes with a heightened sense of beauty.\u00a0 It comes with a plea and a certain prophecy – a plea for harmony and a prophecy of dissension.\u00a0 Beauty is guaranteed and doomed at the same time.\u00a0 The artist has and conveys a complete knowledge of both.<\/p>\n

Above all, in Van Gogh’s paintings there is a plea for understanding – for more elegance in the human soul.\u00a0 If that elegance is too much to ask for, the next best option is to be quiet, to let it rest.\u00a0 Silence has its eloquence.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s been a week of emotional tension in Europe. \u00a0 The civil dissonance feels like wounds that compound wound that increase the wounded. \u00a0 No matter what time I would have driven the French countryside around St. R\u00e9my and Arles … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[458,456,29,457,455,454],"class_list":["post-1179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brexit","tag-arles","tag-silence","tag-st-paul-de-mausoule","tag-st-remy","tag-van-gogh"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4D5qU-j1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1180,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions\/1180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}