Let’s Take it Easy

This week has been really hard y’all.  I mean, really. Fucking. Hard.  Two essays and a website with a dash of art-group drama: that kind of hard.

So today is just going to be some nice pic-spam, a sort of shooting the breeze entry. It’s October!  That’s one of my most favorite months!  Time to start it out on a nice note.

Good things about This week:

I got a package in the mail.

It included the Lo Scarabeo Art Nouveau tarot deck;

To which I say: Gah!  So pretty.  Art Nouveau is experiencing something of a comeback right now, which I love.  It’s a lovely style and a Tarot deck is well suited to it.  I should also mention that I collect decks– I have a Rider-Waite, Halloween, King Arthur, and Gothic themed decks already.

The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh edited by Mark Roskill;

Apparently, it’s a bit hard to come by a good version of Van Gogh’s letters.  There is a Complete collection, which has every one of them, is in multiple volumes, complete with art work, but costs several hundred dollars.  For $10.20, and based on the reviews, the Roskill edition is the best for the most relevant letters and best organization.

and The Saddest Music in the World.

Which is a pretty awesome movie, but I will save my praise for the next episode of Some Cast it Hot.

Meanwhile, in Russian Lit class, we have been reading A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermentov.

A Hero of Our Time is the sort of novel about a sociopath that Bret Easton Ellis wish he could write.  No one is at once creepy and sympathetic like Pechorin, who is able to exude charm and influence while at once acknowledging that he is a moral cripple.

Also, our book cover looks like this:

And if THAT isn’t awesome, I don’t know what is.  That is like, the best damn cover for a 19th Century Russian novel ever.  I defy the universe in finding a better one!

In related news, my life seems to becoming more and more Russian somehow.  I have Matroshka key doo-dads and Russian Ark is at the top of my netflix queue.  We’ll be watching Battleship Potemkin in film class next week.

I don’t know how to transition from that into this.

But here’s a picture of Cary Grant and a puppy.  YAY.

I have no idea what’s more adorable in this picture, seriously.

Swallowed by Light: Vincent and Theo

An analysis of relationships more than the growth of an artist.  And that’s good!

picture from http://dryden.eastmanhouse.org/media/vincent.jpg

Vincent and Theo was directed by Robert Altman, made in 1990.  Starring Tim Roth and Paul Rhys as the brothers Van Gogh.  It was orginally going to be a BBC miniseries covering the full life of the artist, but was trimmed down to cover only the later years.

Altman opens very well, crossing the sale of Sunflowers at Christies for 22.5 million pounds with Vincent’s declaration that he would become an artist to his brother Theo.

Throughout the film, I couldn’t help but make comparisons between Vincent and Theo and Lust for Life, another Van Gogh biopic starring Kirk Douglas.  In both cases, the actors greatly resemble Van Gogh, but they contrast how the artist was.  Lust for Life is Van Gogh idealized, chatty, romantic, even in his crazy moments.  Vincent and Theo is realism, choked with brothels and insanity from both of the brothers.

It’s a movie you have to be patient with.  The fact that it is built on relationships as driving forces makes the viewer sit up to focus on the nuances between the characters.  In most cases, it’s straighforward, especially with Vincent: He is the starving artist who is at odds with the world, in both art and sanity.  Vincent dips his hands into dry paint with utter concentration on his face, then wipes the dust off as if he couldn’t remember doing it.

Theo is more shouty.  Well, honestly, they’re both shouty.  With Vincent, the shouts are cut by painting, at least.  Theo has nothing to do except shout and whine about being an art dealer, sending is brother money, getting married.  It was unique to see a film explore the brothers’ relationship rather than solely the artist’s life, mostly because we wouldn’t have ever heard of Van Gogh if it wasn’t for his brother’s family.

I had to sit back at times and stare.  Both characters act manically throughout the film, and perhaps they both have a combination of syphilis and bipolarism– who knows?  That’s what you’re in for.  Also, the weirdest soundtrack for it’s subject.  At points, the music sounds like rejections of the Psycho theme.  Then it ends with a discordant bass note, thumping along in a B-movie from the 80s style.

The scene with the sunflowers will haunt me in my sleep.  Gah…