Monday, October 13, 2008

Hi, Vincent!



他来了,又走了。后来又来了,可还是又走了。来来去去,不留痕迹;但我相信他就在那些画里面,他会知道我来看他——我怀着这样隐秘的心思独自走在挨挨挤挤的MOMA.

Three months passed since I saw Vincent Van Gogh's works in Amsterdam (see the article "Vincent Van Gogh"). Now I saw him again in the recently opened "
Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night" at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. This exhibition, tiny but immensely touching, pays tribute to the artist’s twilight rhapsodies, to the solace he found in stars, and to the sway of his nocturnal muse.

Watching paintings at different stages of his career, I seemingly re-read Van Gogh's life as I did in Amsterdam. But this time bears more warm and close sensations and new-found awe. I greet this old friend in each of his dazzling nightscapes, especially in the "Starry Night on the Rhone River".

This painting for me seems to have a magic power. The velvety blue spreads out my visual perception; stars ablaze with their luminescence; the night provides a view of the tenderness, urgency and brilliance, -- each inch of canvas carrying its own sense of life. Gazing this painting for a long time, I felt warm current freely flowing from eyes to toes.

“colors have a beauty of their own which must be preserved, as one strives to preserve pure tones in music. ... the beautiful freshness of color ... what counts most with color are relationships. ” - Henri Matisse

Starry_Night_Over_the_Rhone


Van Gogh saw the darkened sky opening into boundless dreams, and at the same time offering a series of mournful endings – of the day, of the season, of life. Night meant despair and enlightenment. “You surely know that one of the fundamental truths of the Bible,” Vincent wrote to Theo, is “the light that dawns in the darkness.”

"And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me." -- Genesis 37:9

Van Gogh discovered new colors everywhere, especially at night.
For him, night was symbol and metaphor, mood and meaning.

I discover new beauty everywhere, especially at Karma. For me, Karma is experience and process, hardship and happiness.

这一切的颠沛,只是一个过程。命途的多舛,是为了求证最终的圆满。 -- 安意如

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