Vincent Van Gogh

One of my favorite Jonathan Richman songs was always about Vincent Van Gogh.  "Have you heard of the painter Vincent Van Gogh, he loved color and he let it show".   He certainly did but today I got a completely different look into the art of Vincent Van Gogh. 

The Metropolitan Museum current exhibit is Vincent Van Gogh and his drawings.  We all know how incredibly talented Vincent was but these drawings blew me away.  Prolific is an understatement. 

The drawings in the first room were my favorites.  He started drawing at the very onset of his career in art.  He had relatively no training.  I only wish that I came with that genetic make up.  The drawings start off in basically pencil charcoals.  The details are incredible.   

Each room tracks him through a different time period.  You can see  later on in his drawings the similarity to his paintings but in charcoals, watercolors and pencils.  That is probably why I like the earlier work, there is absolutely no similarities.  It is as if you are looking at an artist for the firs time.

The one drawing, later on, that was shown of a discus thrower was amazing.  The muscles movement on the models back draw you immediately to the picture.  Most of his drawings were landscapes, sometimes with people, sometimes not.

It is so sad that Van Gogh ended up taking his life just as his work was beginning to get recognition among his peers and others in the art community.  Art obviously just poured out of him. 

I highly recommend going to see this exhibit.  It was inspiring.