Every Monday (is it Monday already?) Tess Kincaid offers up a delectable dessert: Magpie Tales.
Go to Magpie to read the other delicious tales---poems and vignettes--and link your own to the bountiful buffet of dishes.
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| Wheat Field with Rising Sun, Vincent Van Gogh, 1889 |
A special exhibit of his paintings. Unbelievable! Like it was a religious pilgrimage, she went to the art museum. Past the massive doors, across the marble floors of the cavernous main gallery, she headed to where canvas had been touched by god...
Going from piece to piece, gazing, genuflecting, getting lost in where he had troweled paint onto cloth.
Waiting until the guard was gone, and ignoring the velvet ropes, she leaned forward and touched one. Just one spot where he had been...
And then she left with a blissful smile.
This is a true story. I have loved Van Gogh for more than 4 decades and when a special Van Gogh exhibit came to town and I was way-too-old-and-should-have-known-better, I went and, uable to help myself, touched one of his paintings (even though I knew the oil from my finger would help hasten the painting's decomposition).
Somehow I think he would have understood. Or at least forgiven me...
Please don't tell my city's art museum. They just might decide to dust it for fingerprints and then put me in jail. Wait... Long jail sentence + unlimited free time = the luxury of uninterrupted reading and writing. Umm..
I, too, love Vinnie. He, like my mentor and heroine, Emily Dickinson, would be amazed to find that well-deserved fame has come.
ReplyDeletelol...daring enough to do it! I admire that - I like a tamperer.....! And my lips are brushstroke-sealed!
ReplyDeleteYou were bold! his work IS a wonder, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteThe forbidden fruit tastes nicer. You outwitted the guards, how daring! I suppose Vincent's is so adorable you just must do it.
ReplyDeleteWonderful post, Sioux! You law-breaker! And I agree, the idea of lots of free time has quite an appeal.
ReplyDeleteI identify--I have been known to take home rocks from national parks--only if there were lots and lots of them, though. (Shhh--don't tell Homeland Security.) His paintings do seem almost tactile more than visual--I like that he always kept things down to the most simple forms, yet made everything about them perfectly clear, and rich as well.
ReplyDeleteI can feel this, for sure. And it might be lovely to be sequestered for a bit to dream, read and write!
ReplyDeleteWhew! I can understand the compulsion :-)
ReplyDeleteI love the paint troweled onto canvas - and I understand your compulsion too!
ReplyDeletegreat response to the prompt
LOL, I knew such feeling... And I wonder if the blissful smile lasts up to now...
ReplyDeleteNice writing... :)
'paint troweled onto canvas' - a very fitting phrase. Sometimes you have to touch to connect.
ReplyDeleteDon McLean's "Vincent" hit the airwaves in the '70s and I so loved the song that I investigated the inspiration for it and fell in love again. The affair is ongoing. :)
ReplyDeleteLOL...well I think they know this and may have already painted something protective over it...or maybe it's not even the originals... who knows. Good story! :)
ReplyDeleteHi Sioux,
ReplyDeleteSo you're the one they've been looking for all these years.
Last year I volunteered during the Treasures of the Vatican exhibit at the Missouri History museum, and I was surprised at how many people couldn't resist sneaking a touch--or trying to sneak a tough--at some of the exhibits.
Donna V.
I saw my first Van Gogh at the Met in NYC. Had I dared to touch it, I am sure the wrath of God would have flown freely upon my head. Damn, I a wee bit jealous. :-)
ReplyDeleteWe all have a little bit of wickedness in us, waiting to come out when the guard is distracted. If touching a paint is the worst you can do, you are in pretty good shape!
ReplyDeleteBut they won't let you have a computer, which means you won't be able to blog.
ReplyDeleteIs it worth it?
Anyway, I shall bake you a cake with a file in it, then you chisel your way out.
I can imagine the desire to do this.
ReplyDeleteI would have done the same! Great work! Xxx
ReplyDeleteYou wild and crazy gal, you!
ReplyDeleteI love him too your secrets safe with me. Charming write. I knew a woman who could copy him in water color don't ask me how she managed to get the depth and dimension since he loaded the paint on thick but she was brilliant truly
ReplyDeleteI find myself wanting to reach out and touch certain pieces of art that call to me. Shh. Don't tell.
ReplyDelete...i would certainly do the same if i were in that very moment... you’re lucky!(:
ReplyDeletebtw, thanks for finding time looking at my artworks...art had always been my first love since elementary for i had been competing in various art contests and in a variety of art mediums then... hopefully someday i would have a chance to put all of ‘em in a real exhibit... thanks again.(:
~Kelvin
Love the genuflecting. Monet does this to me, so I definitely understand the need to touch such greatness.
ReplyDeleteLike the alliteration in your story above-- and what a delightful story it is! His paintings do seem to ask for us to touch and feel the texture.
ReplyDeletethe story charming made even moreso with it based in fact. i know saying that "Starry Night" is my alltime favorite painting sounds pedestrian. but "Starry Night" is my alltime favorite painting.
ReplyDeleteLOVE your take on the prompt!
ammunition
ReplyDelete