I går ble jeg ferdig med klassikeren “Lust for life” av Irving Stone fra 1934. Dette er en romanbiografi om Vincent van Gogh, og veldig lesverdig. Her er noen avsnitt jeg virkelig ble grepet av.
I min utgave fra A plume book står dette på s 412, og omhandler en samtale mellom van Gogh og Gauguin der førstnevnte prøver å forklare hva han legger i bildene.
“If you want to preach, Vincent, go back to the ministry. Painting is colour, line and form; nothing more. The artist can reproduce the decorative in nature, but that´s all.”
…
“I get motion Gauguin, and the rhytm of life.”
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“When I paint a sun, I want to make people feel it revolving at at terrific rate of speed. Giving off light and heat waves of tremendous power. When I paint a cornfield i want people to feel the atoms within the corn pushing out to their final growth and bursting. When I paint an apple I want people to feel the juice of that apple pushing against the skin, the seeds at the core striving outward to their own fruition!”
… ” … Here, study this ravine. I want to make people feel all the millions of tons of water that have poured down its sides. When I paint the portrait of a man, I want them to feel the entire flow of that man´s life, everything he has seen and done and suffered!”
… ” … The fields that push up the corn, and the water that rushes down the ravine, the juice of the grape, and the life of a man as it flows past him, are all one and the same thing. The sole unity in life is the unity of rhytm. A rhythm to which we all dance; men, apples, ravines, ploughed fields, carts among the corn, houses, horses, and the sun. The stuff that is in you, Gauguin, will pound through a grape tomorrow, because you and a grape are one. (min uthevning) When I paint a peasant labouring in the field, I want people to feel the peasant flowing down into the soil, just as the corn does, and the soil flowing up into the peasant. I want them to feel the sun pouring into the peasant, into the field, the corn, the plough, and the horses, just as they all pour back into the sun. When you begin to feel the universal rhythm in which everytning on earth moves, you begin to understand life. That alone is God.”
Irving Stone (1934/84) Lust for life – the classic biographical novel of Vincent van Gogh
A plume book
