He is meeting Vincent Van Gogh not for the first time. But the post-impressionist is said to be more present here in Amsterdam than anywhere else. Before this he saw him just once in a museum, otherwise only from books. The printed page is always only a poor copy of the real one. That he is meeting Vincent with 3 other friends, all eye-doctors, is only fitting. Two of the doctors theorize what might have been wrong with his eyes that he saw the world the way he did. They are surprised to hear from him that what he likes most about him is the clarity of his vision.
He is an artist who does mostly sculpture now. It has been years since he made a major painting.
But who can fully explain Vincent Van Gogh? Was he insane? Possibly. But see how well he paints. And then see how well he brings the painting tradition of the “Dutch Masters” to its logical modern juncture. It could not have been an easy tradition to challenge or load up into one’s head and then continue historically. This is the tradition of Brueghel, Vermeer, Rembrandt, etc.Vincent taught painting to himself mostly by studying their art in the museums.
And if it were a question of capturing the light and putting this down on the canvas with an eye for reproducing there the 3-dimensionality of real life, then few traditions can beat the Dutch masters. They were also masters at putting into the canvas the illusion of fine detail. In fact, their inclusion of details was quite selective. This selectivity was essential to their manner of composing the visual elements. But of the pre-Van Gogh masters, one can say the details sometimes become over-bearing, even unnecessary, unless one thinks in terms of pandering to their public. This is not something one can ever say of Vincent Van Gogh.
The major part of his insanity was his complete lack of caring for what the public might say of his works. He sold only a few canvases. He might have been a scientist, a doctor even, looking for the truth about a particular condition. How could he ever care for what the public thinks?
He opted at the beginning to go for constructing the illusion of depth by sacrificing surface details to achieve instead the visual weight of the figures he made immortal in masterpieces such as “The Potato Eaters”. In later paintings this effort would translate into an inclusion not just of the physical weight of the figures but also of their emotional weight as well. Just like another post-impressionist, Paul Cezanne, he brings painting closest to the discipline of sculpture. And yet, he did this as a true painter would.
He mastered the skills of producing the exact mix of color-paint he wanted, putting this on the bristle on his brush and then laying this down with an exact movement of his hand, a stroke, on a canvas already covered with a wet layer of paint. To achieve the effects he desired, he might also use a knife or a sharpened bamboo stick to scrape off a layer of paint revealing the underpainting. These are the skills which defined the Dutch masters. None of their techniques are lost in Vincent Van Gogh.
His eye-doctor-friends are all surgeons. They know exactly what it means to use hands and fingers on an instrument to do a tiny task, an incision perhaps, needing inordinate precision. The concept of the predictability of a series of these acts ending finally in the final desired effect is not alien to them either. It is their life. It is also their area of commonality with their artist-friend. They understand Van Gogh without need for their artist-friend to explain anything. They each meet Van Gogh inside their own space and time, alone with him inside the Van Gogh Museum.
Which is just as well. For Van Gogh, the search for his art was a lonely journey. He had only a few consistent friends, his brother Theo and Gauguin with whom he constantly quarreled. This journey took him to France where his colors change from their dark blues to an explosion of brilliant warm tones; the golden wheat fields dancing in the wind under bright sunlight, which he captures again and again all the way to the very end.
He is standing in one such wheat field when he points a gun to his head and pulls the trigger. After the act he walks back to his room with the last painting he ever finished “Crows in a Wheat Field”. It is this last painting which takes your breath away. In one of his last letters to Theo he writes: “I cannot do all I need to do in this lifetime. I am a complete failure.”