Van Gogh

I'm not a huge painting person; not enough mobility for me in a painting. But in elementary school, my art classes were some of my favorite. Looking back, I don't understand what they were thinking. How in the world is a 5 year old going to remember what artist painted during the Renaissance? When my first grade art teacher (Ms. Hall!!!) started talking about Michelangelo and Leonardo, I could have sworn she was talking about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, not artists.

Yet, Van Gogh always stuck out in my mind, and I'll never fully understand why. I think it's because of the ear thing (really, though, don't tell children about things like a man cutting his own ear off; that's the stuff that nightmares are made of).

My husband told me an interesting fact about him today, and it just made me start thinking about him the way I did as a little kid. Appearantly, the only painting he sold during his lifetime was called "Red Vineyards of Arles". In looking at it, the painting isn't one of my favorites by him. Yes, I've already admitted that I'm not all about paintings, but I can at least have an opinion about what I like. It doesn't feel... dark enough, I suppose. I'm so used to his things having this strange Gothic feel, even his sunflowers, and that's what attracted me to his paintings as I grew up. This one doesn't have that feeling. Perhaps that's why it sold...