Beneath skies that sometimes dazzle
like faceted sapphires or turquoises,
beneath the incessant and formidable streaming
of every conceivable effect of light.
In heavy, flaming, burning atmospheres,
there is the disquieting and disturbing display of strange nature
that is at once entirely realistic and yet almost supernatural.
An often excessive nature where everything,
beings and things, shadows and lights, forms and colors,
rears and rises up with a raging will
to howl its own essential song
in the most intense and fiercely high-pitched timbre.
It is matter and all of nature, frenetically contorted.
It is form becoming nightmare, color becoming flames,
light turning into conflagration,
life into burning fever.
Such is the impression left upon the retina
when it first views the strange, intense and feverish work of Vincent Van Gogh.
How far are we, are we not, from the beautiful, great tradition of art?
Never has there been a painter whose art appeals so directly to the senses,
from the indefinable aroma of his sincerity to flesh
and the matter of his paint.
This robust and true artist, Vincent Van Gogh,
towers above the rest.
Put water on him!
You are the painter?
Yes.