SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — I was joined at Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience by Karen Hjalmarson a docent at the Timken Museum, Art Historian, and lecturer on Vincent Van Gogh. We first walk thru his quotes.
“What am I in the eyes of most people a non-entity, or an oddity, disagreeable person, a person who has and will have no position in society…” Van Gogh Quote
The words of the artist immediately remind us Van Gogh did not have success in his life.
As we step into the immersive experience Van Gogh’s words and paintings wrap the room in light and color, as they move and refocus.
Here's The Night Café, the café in Arles, in the south of France.
He loved the night...he preferred night to day paintings, When we talk about starry night...it's important to understand, he looked at that, and remember he was going thru a lot of turmoil then...he wanted to find his place in the cosmos...and he felt that when he looked at night and looked at the night sky...he saw eternity
The sparkles of Starry Night Over the Rhone, and the swirls of The Starry Night fill the space.
And he loved flowers…some coming from his mother’s garden. Van Gogh’s masterpieces include Irises and sunflowers, among others.
He loved Shakespeare as you know, in sonnet 18 Shakespeare said beauty will last in a sonnet and beauty lasts in a painting...he (Van Gogh) took that to heart. – Karen Hjalmarson
And, the beauty of the Almond Blossom, his paintings from 1888-1890. They represented awakening and hope to the painter. In the exhibit, the petals swirl around us in almost a frenzy…as if to represent Van Gogh’s mental state at the time, which was so troubling, he was admitted to an asylum.
That emotional part of his life propelled a lot of great artwork – Karen Hjalmarson.
Van Gogh created 2000 works of art over 10 years from paintings, drawings, and sketches… many of them in the last few tormented years of his life. But Van Gogh only sold one painting in his lifetime.
He is quoted as saying he was painting for people not yet born, and on that he was correct.
Van Gogh was the genesis for expressionism...German...American...so he really was a genesis for that branch of art called expressionism.
Van Gogh’s death in 1890 was reported as suicide.
Tickets and information can be found online here.
