Do remember the moment when you first fell in love with art?
I do.
I would have been around eight years old and my parents took me to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
My Mom had to finally pull me away from the paintings of Claude Monet as I was truly mesmerized, having never seen something that spoke so clearly to my young romantic self. The one who would hide in her oak panelled closet to read for hours, believe in ghosts and create imaginary worlds.
I was still unformed and uninformed.
What I liked was because…well, just that. Chords were struck, simple internal music.
Slowly, I taught myself about painting and sculpture but with it came the pressure of snobbery. “Oh, I can’t possibly enjoy *fill in the blank*.” I would waiver, then abandon. Monet, Erté and Maxfield Parrish to name a few, all deemed entirely too commercial by the New York Citified version of me.
And yet the other evening, it was Mr. Parrish that came to mind as I strolled outside of Les Baux with Remi and Ben. His colors entirely lit the hills on fire without the slightest hint of menace. Or getting burnt. And so his sweet stories of possibility wrapped around me. I let them.
How grateful I am to have doubled back in some way, almost to where I started. To see, to appreciate, to wonder without caring why.
Do you remember your first brush with art? What did it give you?
Wishing you all a very fine weekend…
That made me go "Oooh"–first outloud imagining you walking into the amazing Old King Cole bar and then silently, in gratitude that I brought back some happy memories. That makes me feel grand.
Please don't ever think that I take your kindness and support for granted, Leslie–I never, ever do. Thank you!!
And if you think that you understand Van Gogh seeing it in person, imagining seeing what he painted–ooh, we might have to find a way to get you here…
xo,
h
Heather, what a very interesting topic. The pictures above look more like paintings than photos. They make me want to be there taking a walk in the trees and lights. My taste in art is all over the places from Reuben, Rembrandt, Goya, Georgia O'Keefe, Andrew Wyeth…. more mongrel than refined. My approach to art is the same way I do with music. If it appeals to me, I like it. I don't stick to a certain genre. Years of taking classes in art didn't make me excel in painting or drawing but I was good in etchings especially in woods. My mother was quite artistic and had done some beautiful watercolors which were hung in our family home. I have two of them with me. Your blog got my attention at first because of the name and the tie to Van Goth. If at anytime I'm ever going to be lost anywhere, it might as well be in Arles…:)
Amelia XO
Heather, you write on a myriad of subjects that certainly elicit a response from your readers, which are interesting and varied and reveal their own personalities. I read what each has to share with enthusiasm and interest. David throws in interesting tidbits and always makes me giggle.
I've been racking my brain as to what would have been first introduction to an art experience. I remember being in a ballet concert at age five, sure that I was going to be the world's next prima ballerina. Sadly that never occurred, or perhaps for the world that was a happy outcome! I recall my mother giving me a beautiful book on Degas ballet paintings and sculptures. It was treasured and I have it still.
I remember in secondary school art classes, being full of admiration for the technical skill and fine detail of Albrecht Durer's pencil drawings, especially his animal series. Just after leaving school, I recall going to an art exhibition with many of Pierre Bonnard (contemporary of Toulouse Lautrec's) works. I remember being struck by his beautiful bold pairings of colours, borrowed from the Fauves. Also at the same time, being reacquainted with the work of Arthur Rackham, and his exquisite fairy tale illustrations. which I remembered seeing as a child but thinking at the time that they were old fashioned, and hadn't seen with the appreciation of an adult's eyes.
At design college, I fell in love with Erte's fashion illustrations. I was in awe of the beauty and elegance of his spare and delicate drawings that graced the covers of Harper's Bazaar for 20 or so years. The influence of his illustrations on the art movement of the time must have been significant.
In fashion drawing classes at college, I was introduced to the work of Antonio Lopez,
a fashion illustrator, with a racy edge and confident water colour brush strokes. Finally, also while still a young student at college, I was so excited when one of my more admired fashion designers, Zandra Rhodes, came to town. It was the late 70's and I was a starry eyed fashion student, about 18, and Zandra had travelled from London to Sydney to promote a fashion line that for which one of the stores in the city had secured her services. I had two or so minutes with her afterwards, where I asked her about her pattern making training and how she had started out. Her answer being in equal parts disappointing at the lack of sage advice, and making me in awe of her raw talent that had seen her through. She said "Oh, I didn't train in that, I was self taught!"
However, she was perhaps being a little disingenuous, as I know she had studied at the Royal College of Art and I later discovered that her mother had been a fitter for the Paris house of Worth. Some skills are just inherited from constant familiarity!
Thanks again for your interesting post, Heather! Beautiful sunsets and wooded scenes!
Cheers, Deborah from Melbourne
P.S.(2)……that phrase "art techer" (sic) is a direct quotation from the "report" which that "techer" put in my "file"….presumably to insure that folks would be forewarned about my awful-self before I entered middle school.
I still have that "report". I should have it framed for public display.
—-david terry
Sylvia, there is so much to respond to here, I wouldn't know where to begin! Of course, thank you for your wonderful compliment, that would be a start. I was an actress before I moved to France eleven years ago, then a travel writer as a partner to Remi taking the photographs. It was amazing. When the economy went bust, we stopped getting assignments together and so I started this blog because I HAVE to do something creative or I get too depressed! I have been working hard on my photos over the past year and am really enjoying it.
Ok, back to you. Ah, see I love that because I actually meant all of the arts. Wow, what an incredible way to grow up. Your house must have been filled with music!! Your family must have been so proud of you that you became a music producer, non? I can't paint either but to capture a bit of music and pin it down for forever, that is a wonderful quality…
Will wish you Happy NY when it is time–I am superstitious!
There is nothing that I can say to such beauty (and clearly I am not alone in this) save, merci. And I understand. I really do.
Travel safe.
Oh my. I could have stared at him for hours too. Wow. Natalie, I am speechless! And you know how very rare that is. 😉
How amazing that you grew up surrounded by so much art–that it served you from such a young age–no wonder you have such an incredible eye! I have not heard of a single of your Russian painters and can't wait to go searching…
Bisous,
H
Van Gogh at Arles?! Oh my, I will have to look that up, Linda. So you have seen quite a bit of my town then. Things haven't changed. Don't you love the Met? I think that you have to come here to understand those paintings though, at least I did.
And yes, the Musee d'Orsay always makes me deeply content too.
Let me know if you have that sighting!
P.S. coming back a few hours later?…..I should emphasize that I was scarcely traumatized by that art teacher; I ended up happily being a teacher, myself, for something around fifteen years and, after that, an artist.
I was/am markedly successful at both jobs…primarily, I suppose, by NOT emulating my first, ill-fated (she got fired) "art techer" role-model.
As the novelist Muriel Spark once wrote of another woman: "I was dotty's best friend. I didn't regard her as my friend at all. I regarded her as one of those people whom one can know well, and from whom one can learn a lot of principles which one can later usefully reject."
Not surprisingly, that's from Spark's autobiographical novel "Loitering With Intent"….which is entirely "about" a young woman's becoming an artist in her own right and certainly/completely on her own terms.
Advisedly yours as ever,
David Terry
http://www.davidterryart.com