Adeline Ravoux

It has been a very busy summer! I am currently immersing myself in analysing paintings, which is the only part of my current thesis work that I am really enjoying.

I have been looking at van Gogh's portraits of Adeline Ravoux today.

Gorgeous, isn't it?  The depth of colour, the primness of her pose... the ice blue gaze that stares off at something outside of the painting, at something we will never see. Her hands seem almost fidgety, as though sitting for the charmless painter made her nervous.  

Upon a quick scour of the interwebs, I found this photograph of Adeline in her old age:

Needless to say, this photograph delights me.  It is such a lovely, nostalgic image. I am a little bit in love.

The Van Gogh Gallery has put Adeline Ravoux's account of her time with Vincent on their website, which you can read here. It's a very enlightening read.

The part of her account that stands out to me, especially, is in regard to her perception of the portrait when compared to that of an outsider.  She wrote: 

"I confess that I was only poorly satisfied with my portrait, that I was even disappointed: I did not see a resemblance. Nevertheless, last year, someone who came to see me to talk about Van Gogh: the first time that they met me they recognized me from this portrait that Vincent had done and added: 'This is not the youthful girl that you were that Vincent saw, but the woman that you would become'."

What a remarkable insight into Vincent's vision of those who sat for him, and indeed resonates with his own comment on the style of his portraits:

"I should like to paint portraits which would appear after a century to people living then as apparitions."1

1 Letter 879 to Williemien van Gogh, 5 June 1890.

Placement

From Tate Modern's timeline of modern art. 

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about van Gogh's placement in the timeline of art history.  He's kind of wedged in there, really... on the verge of absolute modernity, but still somewhat shackled to the old guard of artists in Western history, particularly weighed down by the Impressionists.  

This is especially evident in the London collections.  Though the photo above is from Tate Modern, this gallery doesn't actually feature van Gogh on its walls.  Rather, van Gogh pops up in the National Gallery, at the chronological end of the gallery's vast collection of paintings ranging from the 13th to the 19th centuries.  In a way, this is baffling.  Van Gogh's letters reveal him to have been a thoroughly modern artist with his own theories on colour and portraiture, yet so often he is regarded in the framework of the Impressionists and the rest of European art from the Renaissance onward. 

It seems strange that he would be featured on the modern art timeline at Tate, yet you will not find his work on the walls of the gallery itself. 

Sometimes I marvel over the lack of adequate bibliography regarding van Gogh and his letters and theories concerning modern art.  So much of the written work on van Gogh is biographical, with an inordinate amount of focus on his supposed madness.  It makes me wonder if my perceived lack of correspondence-based research on van Gogh's theories concerning art could have to do with his placement in this overall art-historical timeline. Even though van Gogh is undoubtedly one of the most popular and recognisable artists in the history of Western art, is it possible that in some sense, he has fallen through the metaphorical cracks?

Or perhaps this line of thought just reinforces the inadequacy of labels such as Post-Impressionist or Modernist and highlights their failure to fully appropriate an artist's place in history. 

Weekend Inspiration

That is all.

Practice: Surrounding Yourself with Images

 

Lately, I am finding it more and more important to surround myself with images.  At the moment, I'm working through some self-portraits by van Gogh.  They're mere print-offs and taped up in an obvious spot so that each time I walk into a particular room, I am forced to take notice of them.  This is helpful as it makes me consider the works whenever I see them and considering that I am currently writing about the works themselves, it's good to have them physically present.  

This practice is something I have taken from Vincent himself.  There are wonderfully mad accounts of him being a nightmare tenant, hammering new prints up on his walls in the middle of the night, much to his landlady's annoyance.  Inconsiderate, perhaps, but the point is the artist made it a point to surround himself with images he loved.  

In tandem with this,  he also recounts in his letters that he would sometimes scrawl out verses of Scripture in the margins of certain prints, combining text with image in a personal way. 

Hanging in that little room will be the prints I got from you, and so I’ll be reminded of you daily – beneath that one after Rosenthal, that monk, I have written ‘Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me – in the kingdom of heaven they do not marry, and are not given in marriage’. Beneath its pendant, The imitation of Jesus Christ (after Ruipérez), I wrote what we used to hear Pa say: ‘Lord, I should so much like to be earnest’….[1]

What a curious way to make a print your own, and to correlate an image with the written word. I think this is a delightful mode of curation. 

Even my cat likes the practice, and is especially fond of the portrait of Emile Boch. Evidence: 

I've heard lots of post-PhD colleagues say they couldn't stand to think about the artist or artists they focused their research on for sometime after their submission, let alone look at their art.  Four + years with a subject will do that to a person, I suppose.  But somehow, I'm still okay with Vincent and I think even after I'm done, I'll keep some prints up.  Because Vincent was right in his practice: it is important to surround yourself with the images that inspire you. 

---

[1] Letter 112, To Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, Sunday, 22 and Monday, 23 April 1877.

Restructuring

You know you can't keep lettin' it get you down 

And you can't keep draggin' that dead weight around. 

If there ain't all that much to lug around, 

Better run like hell when you hit the ground. 

OK GO, "This Too Shall Pass"

Post-viva, my head was spinning for weeks.  Crazed notions of "why did I even want to do a PhD, anyway" were constant companions.  The main issue with my initial thesis was the structure. I chose to address each topic individually in chapters, then unite them in a final chapter on how each tied together. This, apparently, was not to my examiners tastes.  It would be better, it was suggested, to take the three main chapters and unify the topics throughout.  This would add strength to my argument itself, as the argument is about synthesis, and also would lend itself more to eventual publication.  I'm okay with this. Now. For weeks, I wasn't.  Even though I was told this isn't "rewriting, but restructuring," I could not get my head around the fact that my thesis was picked apart cosmetically when I had been fully prepared to argue the validity of my content.  The fact that my structure had been discussed in various supervisory board meetings and had been approved throughout my progress is something I'd rather not discuss.

I still stand by original scheme, but if it means passing, I will restructure.  Only, what I have discovered is that to restructure, I must rewrite. It's been discouraging, trying to figure out how to do what has been asked of me.  I have taken to crazy note-making on a blackboard, and even a mad moveable post-it note scheme that allows me to move around specific elements of my thesis in a visual way so that I can see if everything will flow properly.  What can  say? I'm a visual thinker. 

Finally, I think I have my new structure.  Now, the task is making it all work and rewriting the necessary bits. I'm hoping this will all be done by the end of July... and any rewriting and editing can be done in August, if necessary.  I keep calling this my diaspora.  Just as the Jewish people were scattered into Babylon, so too will my thesis be scattered into new chapters, with some of it even being scattered to the wind, I'm sure. 

But the point is, I'm feeling better about it.  It took a while.  It knocked my confidence.  But at the end of the day, I love my thesis. I am proud of my work.  And I will finish this damned PhD if it kills me.

First Post!

It's a gorgeous summer day in London.  Of course, I'm indoors staring at my thesis with the same blank, glazed look to which I have become accustomed.  That doesn't stop me from staring out my kitchen window onto this scene with great envy.

I think Vincent would admire the massive tree to the far right, in particular.

The sun reminds me of my venture to the National Gallery earlier this month, where I took a few minutes out of my day to admire their innovative "living wall" display.  Behold the genius of eco-art:

An understatement. 

I love that the experience is so tactile, as well as visual. 

Stunning. 

The National Gallery, London. 

Really, it is a brilliant concept. I don't think van Gogh ever imagined that his art would take on such a form, but I do think he would be delighted by the concept, which marries very well with his own views of the supreme relationship between nature and art. To see one of his most beloved paintings through (literally) nature is an almost transformative experience to undertake. Very inspiring. Now, back to work.

Test, cherie?

Content coming soon.