extraneous work (2): writing about art (van gogh)

perhaps you remember that i wrote about multatuli earlier (my favourite dutch author, more or less from the same time period as vincent van gogh) as being perhaps the inventor of blogging, see his published ideas. sorry to see that they are still not translated in english, an unbelievable state of affairs to me. i'm not a chauvinist, this is a terrific author with truly original prose and ... ideas of course.

but vincent van gogh is an example of a visual artist who also wrote prolifically, on art. of course, contrary to multatuli he never intended these writings to become public, they were after all personal letters, mostly to his brother theo, who was a close supporter of vincent. theo died shortly after vincent, and fortunately for us theo's young widow johanna bonger took great pains to spread appreciation of both vincent's art and the brothers' letters.

crediting multatuli with the invention of blogging is probably unfair to earlier minds which i'm unaware of. and of course, there was an essential ingredient missing: pictures. in vincent's letters one does see pictures being integrated, abundantly so and in much the same way as on this blog. [so even though i would like to be original or prolific or whatever epithet: the truth is that i'm neither of all these things, compared to certain giants in the past and present. but does it matter?]


excerpt from letter to john russell, vincent van gogh (click on the image for an enlargement)

the letter is in english (which is why i chose it for this post) since john peter russell was an australian artist who made vincent's acquaintance in paris. vincent was completely fluent in dutch, french and english, and also a voracious reader. here is a portrait of vincent by john russell:


portrait of vincent van gogh, john peter russell (1886, click on the image for an enlargement)

anyway, vincent wrote over 840 letters (844 have survived due to theo and johanna), containing a staggering amount of prose and sketches. seeing the interest in these letters i should remind myself that perhaps my writings here are not as uninteresting to others as i often fear them to be. but already for vincent the letters themselves were enough, and so it is for me as well: a main reason to maintain this blog is to help me crystallize and develop my thoughts on art.


yellow house sketch from letter vgm 491, vincent van gogh (click on the image for an enlargement)

extraneous work (1): 6,5 years of this artist's blog

so time flies. and it happens i repeat myself. what i would like to do next is start a little series on all the extra -sometimes extraneous- work that comes along with being an artist, for me at last.

is this an interesting subject? not sure. why would a musician blogging about practising scales interest me? how she has to make recordings to submit to ... and how she has to do photo shoots, buy strings, tune the instrument, heat the appartment... we take all these things for granted, even when we're in awe of her music. even then, would my interest stretch beyond reading what influences / influenced her, her coming of age as a musician etc? not sure.

when i look at the large amount of time i spend on music (practising, myself; listening to music) and compare it to the amount of time i read about musicians/composers... it doesn't bode well for how interesting my own blog would be to others than myself. [still, the blog at least makes my art available on the web, and it has the added advantage of offering me the opportunity to crystallize some of my thoughts on art.]

but i suppose i would be interested in a description of this musician's activities, if it is well written, and offered some real insight in what drives her, both musically and as a person i suppose, since it seems hard to separate the two completely. and if like on this blog, the description would be interlaced with music...

anyway. it seems i would do well to at least write well on this blog. yet i tend to think that if i had wanted to become a good writer, then i would not have become an artist. most things takes a lot of time and energy to do well, and writing a blog is no exception. worth it too, since writing this blog helps me in important ways with my art itself: to present my art, to think about art and artists, to rethink my art, to rethink my artist's position in life and society, and even to create my art.

in order to present my art here, i spend quite some time on photography and subsequent tuning of digital images with photoshop and other image editors, such as picasa. a subject for the next post in this series, but as an example:


outsider in woman-man dance (own work, 2010-2013, 21 x 30cm, click on the image for an enlargement)

difficulties abound: the colours of the drawing are hard to capture even with my canon 650d; then apart from often tricky colour adjustments the white-balance and the brightness of the picture need to be calibrated for use on computer screens. for shiny paintings, reflection-specks are edited out. then the image has to be saved for web, in a typical compromise between size and detail.

the drawing itself combines two themes: man-woman dance, and outsiderness (being an outsider). much as i would like to be able to write strikingly about my art, this is where i usually find myself at a loss for words.

lately i realize that this has something to do with a `trite' question: what do we mean with `meaning'? i cannot explain the meaning of art, i feel. if it has meaning (whatever that means), then the most important part of that meaning to me is essentially non-verbal. what is the meaning of the goldberg variations?