Van Gogh
Kaitlin Moreno
The College of Mount Saint Vincent
English 110
Professor Jessica Rogers
October 29, 2014
Escaping Through Ourselves
In 1888 Vincent Van Gogh painted Vincent’s Bed in Arles a brightly painted oil on canvas, measuring to 72x 90cm, this was of his little bedroom in France. When one thinks of a bedroom it brings about emotions of safety. One’s personal sanctuary where the world does not exist, no pains of reality can touch you. It seems when one closes their bedroom door all mundane thoughts are gone and you are left with your imagination. One who agrees with this interpretation is Jane Flanders. Jane Flanders is a highly educated woman, as she attended Mawr College and Columbia University, she has three books of poems published and has won many awards. A person whose mind is always running and always working such as hers can agree that rest for the imagination is the best way to strengthen it. One simple painting of his bed and petite, creaky room and one simple four stanza poem shows how materialistic possessions can never reflect the human soul, simplicity in life heightens creativity and how solitude doesn’t have to be a negative aspect in life.
“I can tell you that for my part I will try to keep a straight course, and will paint the most simple, the most common things” (Van Gogh, 545). This was written in a letter to Vincent’s brother Theo, Van Gogh is declaring how he now wants to live his life: straight forward and simple. As one can see in the painting he did not accumulate many riches in his life. He never kept heirlooms or anything of wealthy status. His bedroom as described in the poem is “is narrow…clumsy but friendly…empty” (Flanders, Van Gogh’s Bed). The pictures on the wall are crooked, it’s a tiny room for one with a narrow window, filled with a table where he works and chairs to sit on. Flanders describes it just as it is, these adjectives can be not be clearer. To me this proves that materialistic objects in life can never
The College of Mount Saint Vincent
English 110
Professor Jessica Rogers
October 29, 2014
Escaping Through Ourselves
In 1888 Vincent Van Gogh painted Vincent’s Bed in Arles a brightly painted oil on canvas, measuring to 72x 90cm, this was of his little bedroom in France. When one thinks of a bedroom it brings about emotions of safety. One’s personal sanctuary where the world does not exist, no pains of reality can touch you. It seems when one closes their bedroom door all mundane thoughts are gone and you are left with your imagination. One who agrees with this interpretation is Jane Flanders. Jane Flanders is a highly educated woman, as she attended Mawr College and Columbia University, she has three books of poems published and has won many awards. A person whose mind is always running and always working such as hers can agree that rest for the imagination is the best way to strengthen it. One simple painting of his bed and petite, creaky room and one simple four stanza poem shows how materialistic possessions can never reflect the human soul, simplicity in life heightens creativity and how solitude doesn’t have to be a negative aspect in life.
“I can tell you that for my part I will try to keep a straight course, and will paint the most simple, the most common things” (Van Gogh, 545). This was written in a letter to Vincent’s brother Theo, Van Gogh is declaring how he now wants to live his life: straight forward and simple. As one can see in the painting he did not accumulate many riches in his life. He never kept heirlooms or anything of wealthy status. His bedroom as described in the poem is “is narrow…clumsy but friendly…empty” (Flanders, Van Gogh’s Bed). The pictures on the wall are crooked, it’s a tiny room for one with a narrow window, filled with a table where he works and chairs to sit on. Flanders describes it just as it is, these adjectives can be not be clearer. To me this proves that materialistic objects in life can never