How
The Landscape Influenced van Gogh and his Art
By Giuseppe Cafiero
From his early
years growing up in the unspoilt countryside of Brabant to his last years at
the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, van Gogh was drawn to
the natural landscape.
In a letter to
his brother Theo, for instance, Vincent wrote “Sometimes I long so much to do
landscape, just as one would for a long walk to refresh oneself, and in all of
nature, in trees for instance, I see expression and a soul, as it were.”
But to van Gogh,
the vivid vistas he captured on canvas were more than mimesis;, more than an
earnest homage to the beauty of nature. There is a deeper psychological aspect
to these works which mirror the mind of the artist, and which speak to us of
his emotional and spiritual state.
Though he was
the quintessential tortured soul, the landscape – be it natural or man-made; a
town, city or field – offered a kind of maternal womb that he could retreat to,
and which imbued him with hope in the face of otherwise suffering or violence.
The landscape
was rich in moods and emotions, which he observed with the assiduous eye of an
impressionist but transformed with his introspective boldness. His surroundings
were moments to decipher and through which to probe his feelings. The emotional
resonance of such works as Starry Night –
one of his best known and most popular pieces of art – express this synthesis
between the inanimate and anima perfectly. Painted while resident at a mental
hospital in Saint-Rémy-de-Provenc in 1889, the clear, star-lit sky can be
viewed as an expression of the artist’s faith in the overarching peace of the
universe and as an escape – if only temporarily – from the mental shackles that
weighed so heavily upon him.
Vincent Van Gogh: the Ambiguity of Insanity by Giuseppe Cafiero is out now as an
audiobook on
Amazon, Audible.com
and iTunes
About the Book
Title
: Vincent Van Gogh: The Ambiguity of Insanity
Title: Chicks Dig the Accent
Roxanne D. Howard is a romance novelist who resides in the mid-western United States. Her first novel, At the Heart of the Stone, was
published in February 2016 with Loose Id. Roxanne is a U.S. Army
veteran, and has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and English. She
loves to read poetry, classical literature, and Stephen King. She is
also an avid Star Wars fan, musical theater nut, and loves
everything related to marine biology. She is the proud mother of two
beautiful girls, several pets, and loves to spend time with her husband
and children when she’s not writing. Roxanne loves to hear from her
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