I was on a business trip (investigating Romanian sugar beet factories) one year after the fall of Nicolae Ceaușescu being driven through the heavily forested Carpathian mountains
The driver asked if I might be interested in hunting some wild boar, which roam the forest. I declinedBird In Space
A little further along the road the car stopped in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere.
“Why have we stopped?” asked my business colleague.
“Here is the sculpture park of the most famous Romanian artist”
“And who might that be?” We asked
“Constantin Brancusi!” came the reply
At that time I was none the wiser … I am now …
And sure enough … there in the depths of the Carpathian Mountains … somewhat overgrown … surrounded by (I hope, appreciative) wild boar … are arranged some of the wonderful external works of Romania’s most celebrated artist
From the moment of his arrival in Arles, on 8 February 1888, Van Gogh was constantly preoccupied with the representation of “night effects”. In April 1888, he wrote to his brother Theo: “I need a starry night with cypresses or maybe above a field of ripe wheat.” In June, he confided to the painter Emile Bernard: “But when shall I ever paint the Starry Sky, this painting that keeps haunting me” and, in September, in a letter to his sister, he evoked the same subject: “Often it seems to me night is even more richly coloured than day”. During the same month of September, he finally realised his obsessive project.
He first painted a corner of nocturnal sky in Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles (Otterlo, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Muller). Next came this view of the Rhône in which he marvellously transcribed the colours he perceived in the dark. Blues prevail: Prussian blue, ultramarine and cobalt. The city gas lights glimmer an intense orange and are reflected in the water.
The stars sparkle like gemstones.A few months later, just after being confined to a mental institution, Van Gogh painted another version of the same subject: Starry Night (New York, MoMA), in which the violence of his troubled psyche is fully expressed. Trees are shaped like flames while the sky and stars whirl in a cosmic vision. The Musée d’Orsay’s Starry Night is more serene, an atmosphere reinforced by the presence of a couple of lovers at the bottom of the canvas.
