Perspective in a Cave

In Provence, Van Gogh is king. His picture is hanging in shops, his paintings are copied and sold all around, his favorite drink, absinthe, is stacked in great supply in the corner of every store. If he created but one painting in a certain place, you are sure to know it and the city is sure to capitalize on it. St. Remy is no exception; throughout the town, plaques with his paintings are placed in the spot from which he painted the original over a hundred years before. While we haven’t taken the official Van Gogh tour of Provence, each stop of significance another site from which he painted, we have explored a nearby spot worth mentioning. In Les Baux, an old city atop a hill, centered around its once grand and now crumbling castle, there are caves carved out of the solid rock. In one of these such caves a creative entrepreneur has put the space to better use than just a dark, dank place to get out of the rain. The Cathedral d’Images is a state-of-the-art tourist trap, worth every Euro cent. As we approached, the caves looked as ordinary as any of the others we passed en route. After paying a nominal fee at the simple ticket counter, we ventured into the heavy coolness of the space. Essentially, the Cathedral is a grand art gallery, but instead of stuffy critics, bundled-up tourists file through and instead of prized works, small and framed on the walls, the caves interior is bathed in the light of a dozen high-powered LCD projectors. Images of famous works, over three stories high, hang as tapestries of light and color from the stone walls and pillars. The images change and move, scrolling across the surface of the cave’s interior, projected from the machines overhead. I have been twice now, to the caves, the first at Thanksgiving and the second at Christmas. Between times, however, my perspective has changed a bit. One of the many works of literature that we brought on our European journey was a copy of Lust for Life, borrowed from Whitney’s mother. It is a poetic and richly descriptive biography of Vincent Van Gogh’s life. Written like a novel rather than a history book, it quickly captured my attention and ushered me into a place of understanding and appreciation of this oft misunderstood man. Before this simple education, Van Gogh seemed crazed, inaccurate, even inarticulate. I felt like he was a child, twirling his paintbrush through color and arriving at a harsh depiction what could have been a beautiful scene. But as I read, I better grasped the mind behind the canvas, the struggles, the rejection he suffered and the tenacity with which he pursued the excellence he eventually attained. Needless to say, my Christmas trip was a more rewarding experience. While initially I was awed at the genius of the project itself, the projectors, the atmosphere, the general idea of the thing, the second visit I was much more drawn to the work itself. While my knowledge of the artist’s life was still no more than elementary, I now saw behind the paint and canvas, to the pain he carried and the joys and triumphs that propelled him to some of his most renowned and beautiful pieces.

As I went from interest to appreciation, I felt a surge of hope in my own life. So often I think that what I have to say is insignificant. While I would love to write beautifully and artfully and adventurously, I feel like the page ends with a drab, monotone depiction of an ordinary day in an ordinary life. And yet, when I look at Van Gogh’s work now, I don’t appreciate the depiction of a scene to its most minute and perfect detail, if I wanted such a scene I would buy a photo taken on that very spot, no, instead I see through eyes that are different than mine, eyes seeing through emotion and experience as a pair of glasses, eyes that saw shapes and lines and colors that I could never see. And that is what I can only hope to do. I hope to be another set of eyes through which the world sees, one that may be different enough that some learning or beauty or understanding comes by looking through.