I
own a volume of his letters and some reproduction prints, but I'm not
sure how he would have coped, if
he would have coped
with the annihilation of war, world war, had he been of the same
nature, just born much later than 1853. These events, if nothing
else, would, I think, have driven him to the brink of madness. Or
brought a severe and lasting depression on to darken his vision and
torment his mind.
The
land he admired torn and churned up; its peoples broken apart. His
Starry
Night
would have been a very different Starry
Night,
capturing an unusually peaceful still evening before once again the
skies were abruptly split by the machinery of war and people were
running for cover.
Yet
all the same I wonder what art would he have made? What studies and
paintings? A bias part of me thinks they would have been amazing;
amazing as in what in reflection they would tell us - those of us
that weren't there - and provide, as I'm supposing, an entirely
different interpretation of those times. Vincent van Gogh's vision of
war would have been striking. Chilling, even, had he been able of
course to pick up a brush and paint it, because I'm still not sure
had he been around during the first or second world wars he would
have been able to. I don't think his impulse, that creative streak in
him, to sketch, to paint, to capture colour would have prevented him,
but his intenseness might. His own character. The horrors of war
might have made him turn away, retreat or deny it was happening, or
perhaps his art would have been more brush swirls and vivid unnatural
colours; abstract-like, all texture and motion, nothing distinct like
an optical illusion of various shapes and shades. The world as he saw
it disturbed. A mental, a visual adjustment.
But
if he hadn't been able to paint it, he would have written of it –
to Theo, his brother, if nothing else, of that I'm sure. Perhaps
commented on his latest efforts, where he had been and what he had
seen, whose likenesses he had drawn or felt compelled to remember,
and on the nature of warfare: the scars it brought and the scars it
left, on lands and peoples. The hardships, the poverty, the food
scarcity and any 'luxuries' or kindnesses that might have come his
way.
But,
you say and quite rightly too, other artists, writers and poets who
were there
have captured these wars? Paul Nash, David Bomberg, Edward Ardizzone,
Edward Bawden; Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, Wilfred Owen, Rupert
Brooke; Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, Erich Maria Remarque and
Christopher Isherwood to name but a few. Participant or non-combatant
they all depict and record aspects of war, some that we'd like to
forget but to do so would dishonour lives: all who survived and all
who fought.
Then
there's the novelists that scatter it amongst their leaves: in the
background but not as the overarching theme, as well as those that
bring it to our attention now, in realistic detail, like Michael
Morpurgo.
War
easily enters the world of words and pictures.
Free
expression. Art as therapy.
War
makes an impression. Art marks a passage of time.
War
shapes lives. Even Homer's Iliad
could be said to be an example of this. Wars and other events
preceding any that might occur in our own lifetimes can still years
later influence art and minds. The shadows of it forever cast on the
human psyche. Ghosts of the past rise up, fade, then again rise.
There are stories that need to be told, moments caught. Writers,
poets and artists are best placed to do that – at the time of it
happening, upon reflection, or in the future. Interpretations are
never merit-less; a new perspective can always be learned from, and
that includes a new perspective on an old one. People change.
Memories, opinions soften or harden. Facts are sometimes fact and
sometimes not.
One
Man, alone, can't defy the world, but he can express what he sees,
what he feels.
Picture credit: The Starry Night, 1889, Vincent van Gogh
This post was penned in 2019.
