Of Sunflowers and Druids

 Last night I got caught up in artists lives online. El Greco, Turner and Da Vinci kept me up way past yesterday and threatened to greet “the rosy fingered dawn” so popular in my fumbling attempts to translate the Iliad freshman year.

Fascinating in the lives of El Greco and Turner was their determination to explore the evolution of their own styles and inner vision despite the derision of critics who had previously championed their insight. Well, perhaps with the exception of El Greco who had to wait a couple of centuries to be recognized as a precursor to both Impressionism and expressionism. Turner was seen as the golden boy who went “strange.” The Da Vinci piece was an interesting treatment of a theory that contends that The Mona Lisa is not a portrait of a specific woman at all - Lisa del  Giocondo - as Vasari contends - but rather a purely fictional version of “a mother” commissioned by a Medici. Interesting stuff, kept me awake anyhow.

But when I sat down to draw today another artist jumped to mind - Van Gogh and his sunflowers. He painted them repainted them. There was obviously a fascination with them. I suppose that thought sprang to mind as continued to add color to yet another version of Druids. You see I didn’t actually realize it was yet another version of Druids. I had just finished Vase and Flowers, and was looking for a new drawing. Which means I browse through the hundreds and hundreds of my photos and drawings until one jumps out. Well, Druids, jumped out and I cleaned it up, and had it printed out large to add further designs and color. It was only later while looking for something else on my backup drive that I stumbled across previous digital versions I had done of Druids. 

Setting aside the idea that I had just found evidence of an extreme senior moment, I chose to wonder if Van Gogh thought that each new version of Sunflowers was the first.  I suppose that having the physical paintings around your studio would make them harder to forget than digital versions that live in a black box on your desk. But maybe he had sent them off to brother Theo to be sold. Leaving Theo to wonder, “More sunflowers?! Really Vincent! Maybe time for a refresher at Saint-Remy!”

I think I’ll just put the realization of multiple Druids out of my mind. I won’t be able to finish this one before we head back to Raleigh for a couple of weeks anyhow. I’ll deal with it then. Meanwhile, here is a copy of what I sincerely believe is the original Druids: