Manifesto One: Van Gogh on the Possible and True*
Even here there is no blue
without yellow and orange,
and color must still do everything.
My bedroom (precisely as I have always seen it,
flat tints and a thick impasto, lilac doors, the green-citron
pillow and scarlet coverlet, the pale violet
walls and floors of red, the basin blue
which requires, as I’ve said, other colors)
Is heaven. I smoke my pipe in bed
for days on end and live
in paintings I never have to make.
And there is nothing in my mirror.
*A number of these lines are cribbed/adapted from Van Gogh's letters, as included and translated in Herschel B. Chipp's Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book. As far as I know, Van Gogh wrote no letters after his actual death.
4 comments:
Dear DW:
That's what you think. Haven't I just written a letter through you?
VG
P.S. Have you any idea how hard it is to paint a mirror convincingly?
Dear VG:
As long as we're communicating, you really could have sold some of those paintings for a lot of cash. It makes me sad now. How do you feel about it?
dw
Well, yes . . . I'm a little sad about that, too.
After all, that's why I went into art--for the moolah.
I imagine it's the same reason you became a poet.
Love,
Vin$ent
Dear Vin$ent--
Thanks again for responding so quickly. Lying around smoking your pipe, and living in paintings you don't have to make, i imagine you have plenty of time to surf the internet. What do you think of blogs? If you were still making new art, would you be making films, web comics, you tube videos? Do tell.
dw
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