Best of Van Gogh Birthday Celebrations

In case you didn't know it, 2015 is the 162nd birthday year of our man Vincent. There were many great and not-so-great celebrations of this sobering passage of time this year, but here are the best. And how did I judge them to be the best? Entirely from my biased viewpoint, of course! If you know of any other celebrations worth noting, feel free to leave info or links in the comments section.

Here we go now:

Commemorative Coin

I guess it only made "cents" that a coin would be made to celebrate Vincent.  In this case, the amount is 5 Euros and 10 Euros, a denomination that did not exist during all of Vincent's short life. Actually, I cheated a little to include this on the list. The coins came out years ago, but I just found about them this year SO THERE.

Minneapolis Institute of Art's Honkin' Big Recreation of "Olive Trees"

Going to fly into the Minneapolis Airport anytime soon? Or perhaps you recently had a flight and looked out the window and thought you were losing what was left of your mind? Well, you will or may have already checked out the massive recreation of Van Gogh's Olive Trees in a field near the airport. The work was commissioned by the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) and done by "earthworks artist" Stan Herd. No, I don't know what Stan heard, but it looks like you can dance to it. Wow!

Starry Night Grown in a Petri Dish

Now, scientists get a bad rap by those of an artistic employment. But scientists are highly creative individuals, as shown by members of the American Society for Microbiology. Van Gogh's big birthday coincided nicely with the first art contest put on by the society. The canvas was a petri dish (or succession of them) and the paint were different colored strains of bacteria. Now that's taking art to new levels and to new species.

The Google Doodle

Because they had to. (This originally went up in 2005.)

And a special shout out to

The Dahlia Parade in Zundert, Netherlands

In September, there was a flower parade to end all flower parades -- for Van Gogh fans, anyway. Floats a mere 62 feet long celebrating Van Gogh's works. Floats took about a year to make and were mostly made up of 50 species of dahlia flowers. The Rose Bowl got nuthin' on this. Well done, Zundert. More photos can be found here.

Van Gogh in Poetry

Vincent Van Gogh is not just a great artist (oh no) but he is also considered a great metaphor for poets. (For those of you who failed English 101, a metaphor is a description that does not use "like" or "as.") In other words, metaphors are things used to describe other things. This may seem like a roundabout way of making a point, but many times the point made with a metaphor makes more of an impact than if a poet or writer just used a plain description.

Here's a short look at how Vincent Van Gogh has been used to describe other things by major poets of the twentieth century. Major to ME, anyway and hopefully major to you. This is in no way a comprehensive list.

Charles Bukowski

This much-missed American icon (and subject of the cult film Barfly) was one of the most accessible poets America ever produced. He made his point without being sappy or using references so obscure that only he himself could comprehend them. Van Gogh shows up several times in the course of Bukowski's career.

Van Gogh is the starving artist who no one understands. He's very much like Bukowski himself, only Bukowski did receive critical acclaim and some money in his debauched lifetime. Van Gogh is described as a romantic and a professional fighter. He's also sometimes a hero for Bukowski, such as in "About My Very Tortured Friend Peter."

Anne Sexton

Anne Sexton was the OTHER woman poet who committed suicide. She's best remembered, perhaps, as the inspiration for Peter Gabriel's classic song Mercy Street. She was also a very powerful and influential poet who first wrote poetry as a suggestion from her therapist. She wrote mostly about herself.

The Starry Night refers to Van Gogh's painting of the same name (the one Dan Mclean sang about.) It begins with a quote from Van Gogh's letters. It then describes Sexton's emotions when viewing the painting. It has an achingly beautiful refrain: "Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die." You're not alone, there Anne.

The Van Gogh Poetry Challenge

While researching this article, I stumbled across the Van Gogh poetry challenge. It has some interesting work. Poetry and paintings both are stereo-typically hard to get for the average person, but I think these poems are easy to get and rewarding to read.

If you could  write a poem about Van Gogh, what would you write?

"The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles", By Martin Gayford: A Review

(This review first appeared at Goodreads. That's where I've been spending a shameful amount of time instead of updating this blog. ANYWAY --)

There was a telemovie made in the UK in 2007 based on this book by Martin Gayford (Little, Brown & Company). For once, the movie wound up being much better than the book. This book promises more than it can deliver. Just what happened between Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh remains just as mysterious as before reading this convoluted book. Although it is generously illustrated, none are in color -- a great handicap for two artists who were so devoted to color.

There are much better books about Van Gogh out there than "The Yellow House."

I was also disappointed at how much this book spent on Gaugain's life after the Yellow House. The book could have been better if it focused on the time of the Yellow House and only mentioned what happened to Gauguin briefly. The author apparently had very little material to work with and decided to milk it for what it was worth.