What in your life inspires you? Anything? In my madness, the one painting I looked at the most was Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh (he was actually one of the people I talked to in my psychosis, interestingly enough). How I stared at that one piece of art. I look at it now, and you know, before the madness, I just didn't get it. It didn't speak to me; I didn't understand why people made so much of it. (You can look at it here, if you want to.) The strokes were too rough for my liking, things didn't line up or look like attention was made to make them look anything like realistic. I preferred da Vinci, I preferred Michelangelo, I preferred Rembrandt. Then, when I was looking at it this one time, VvG (as I used to call him when he was floating around in my head) did something to change my view. In my mind's eye, superimposed on reality like a palimpsest, he put his hands in the painting — in the two big swirls joining at the center of the painting — and it was as if he were holding the sky in those hands of streaming air. VvG (once again, in my head) was one of the best friends I had. He made me see the beauty that I could not before in those paintings of the real van Gogh.
I looked again, after I could see the wonder of Starry Night, at other paintings of van Gogh's. In one, full of oranges and yellows — and I think my psychosis gave me a treat this time — it looked as if the paint were on fire. And you know, van Gogh is my favorite painter nowadays. Starry Night is it for me: I aspire to do just one thing in my life ringing with as much truth as that painting. Someone with a radiant soul did that painting, and it is one cherished wish that someone could say so of something mine. I am inspired.
Raymond
1:03pm saturday, 19th january
The picture is amazing.
*******
6:55pm saturday, 19th january
only someone with a radiant soul would understand that painting.peace to you friend.
D
7:54am tuesday, 12th march
I myself love this painting. It particularly struck a cord with me because my previous boyfriend liked it as well...we were together almost 5 years. He too has schizophrenia. It brings back some beautiful memories.
Strawberry
12:35pm tuesday, 8th march
There is something that I call the Van Gogh syndrom.
Several years after the onset of my illness I found myself at a swank lunch sitting next to the Director of the Wadsworth Atheneum. The Atheneum is small but choice, it is the oldest continuously running art museum in the United States. My disease had yet to fully develope, and I enjoyed a very low dose of medication and close ties to society. I was at this museum a docent, trained for over one and a half years to be a tour guide for visitors and students. I asked the Director, "Why did it take so long for people to appreciate Van Gogh?" And he answered, "It did not take long at all. If Van Gogh had lived he would have enjoyed success. It was shortly after his death that his paintings became popular."
As a docent I spent a lot of time doing research and memorizing historical facts for my tours. The Wadsworth has a small library and as a frequent visitor I became friendly with a librarian. She told me that she could see the difference between the paintings that Van Gogh did when he was psychotic and those painted when he was not. "Which is better?" I asked. She shrugged her shoulders. "Neither. They are just different."
The director of the docent program was exasperated by Van Gogh, especially the prices his paintings commanded at auction. She said, "It took him 10 years before he became any good as a painter. And yes, he is good. But there are so many other painters who make great paintings and they don't sell near at his price and they don't get near the recognition they deserve." At the time she said this we had hanging a special exibit from Spain, in which was an early Van Gogh. I think most would have been shocked, the painting was so easy to ignore, - it had in it only three or four brush strokes that could have linked him to what he later became.
I remember in these years standing before a Van Gogh in a musuem in Boston and being shocked, to my core, at the energy in the painting. I don't know if I looked with the eyes of a docent or the eyes of a psychotic. It doesn't matter much because I know that what I understood was real. I understood that to contain that much mental energy in such a small space, concrete and saved, to believe in yourself so strongly that you are master of color, and as master there are no rules, - to do as Van Gogh had done with that painting was near miraculous.
And yet. To get to that maturity he spent ten years practically at nothing else but drawing, looking, and learning. He really slaved to develope his talent. The mental illness did not give his creativity a free ride. In fact, the illness created the conditions of his death, which cut short the talent. One of the costs of being so obsessed and dedicated to art was an absolute disregard for the developement of social skills. Theo could not stand living with his brother, writing letters yes, but human procsymmetry, no. Ah, I can't spell and I can't cheat because there is no spell check on this post program.
The Van Gogh syndrom occurs again and again in history, to lesser and fuller degrees. The core idea is simple. Van Gogh could not be famous in his lifetime. The fact that he was alive interfered with human perception of his art. When an artist is known to be dead then their work can be seen without fear, and there is no need to use critical ridicule as a defence against that that fear. An alive Van Gogh was a mental threat to everyone who stood in front of his painting, with the exception of Theo. Theo knew that he could get his brother to physically "go away" and thus he could take a mental step closer to Vincent's art.
Currently in the outsider art world there is an artist named, I think, Henry Darger. He is dead. He worked as a janitor, visited mass every morning, and had no friends, no relatives. He made a lot of watercolor paintings of little girls running around with little penises and getting violently killed. Usually by being choked. I read that one was on the market for $80,000. Of course the colors are beautiful, the compositions playful, lovely, otherworldly. But society would not appreciate this art if Darger were alive. Dead, we know that he can't diddle with the little girl in the apartment next to his. Darger made art that could not be seen by the generation that was his contemporary. For that generation, if it had seen such art, it would have critisized the meek man into silence. Children mocked Cezanne and threw stones at him - and he only painted landscapes. How hard would have Darger's neighbors come down on him if they knew what he was creating in secret? As it is, books and articles on Darger can bearly address the fact of why would an artist be fascinated by little girls with penises? But if his watercolors did not have this social sin I doubt they would be selling for $80,000.
Apply the Van Gogh syndrom to Darger and the result is 1)a talent that must develope apart from society if it is to exist and create. And then you also get what happens again and again in history and is no coincidence, 2)fame after death.
Many of the schizophrenics I know are radiant souls. They are too sick to play social games. They are too sick to make chit chat. Sometimes poverty and the illness has so ravaged them that they are physically distasteful. It breaks my heart that nothing I write can get through to them. They cannot appreciate or know Stand. There are no computers in their life, there may be books, but ususally the disease has compromised their ability to process the abstract task of reading. Sometimes they can see my art. Perhaps pictures communicate with a primitive part of the brain.
I believe that some people become schizophrenic because they would rather break than become artificial. They would rather break then become like the parents who raised them. They would rather break then become sucessful and serve the appetites of society. Withdrawl from society serves a purpose. I think of monks in contemplation. Deliberately choosing silence. Chosing a life of simplification. Poverty. Chastity. Schizophrenia usually gives a person just such a life.
For the most, Van Gogh was very sane. Maybe a small part of him knew that after death he would no longer be socially isolated. After death humanity could approach, after death his art could be cherished and appreciated by society.
Yeah. You should see me after I haven't showered for five days.
Raymond
Stand
