I couldn’t work it
out. When I first saw the painting face to face it struck me as friendly and warm, perhaps
in a non-committed way, but nonetheless warm. Then I read the note next to it and was disturbed. It had a quote
from a letter from Vincent to Theo and his wife, Jo (he was to write just two more letters in his life): “They’re
immense stretches of wheatfields under turbulent skies, and I made a point of
trying to express sadness, extreme loneliness.”
But I didn’t see that.
Maybe it was the colours, which immediately reinforced my fixed, overarching association
of the painter with the south of France; maybe it was my bias towards optimism – I can’t
say. I simply couldn’t see the down side of what he was painting, even when it was certified by van Gogh
himself.
I kept returning
to the painting to search for that hidden sadness and loneliness.
Whenever I stood before it, I tried to force myself to see in it what I thought wasn’t there. Slowly the painting was becoming neutral to me. Then
the picture grew colder and stranger. At some point I noticed that the field in
the bottom left-hand corner, which earlier looked vibrant and inviting, like a
good childhood summer, now was chaotic and hostile. Gradually I was beginning
to feel some inhuman cold emanating from it. It may have been the mercilessness
of nature that I was registering or the dangerous disharmony in a place where one
expected safe order – I couldn’t say, all I knew was that it started to disturb
me. The colours were still warm, but not warm enough. They were lukewarm, they didn’t care, there was no warmth underneath them.
I realized that they were capable of cruel indifference and, at least for a moment, I
disliked them.
Then it happened: one day, a minute or so into another meeting, the painting became transformed for me and started dragging me down, I was afraid. And at last I understood. Just like van Gogh’s depression, the sadness and loneliness weren’t there - just like they weren't here - in the first place: they are man-made.
Then it happened: one day, a minute or so into another meeting, the painting became transformed for me and started dragging me down, I was afraid. And at last I understood. Just like van Gogh’s depression, the sadness and loneliness weren’t there - just like they weren't here - in the first place: they are man-made.
