Here's A Chance to Experience Van Gogh's Spirituality

Those of us of a certain age might deem a popular song of 1972 as a touch stone of our youth and the nativity of our fascination with all things “Vincent.” Don McClean’s paen to the artist Van Gogh is also known by its opening line, “Starry, Starry Night,” referencing the artist’s 1889 masterpiece THE STARRY NIGHT. Van Gogh’s paintings inspire a devotion that is unmatchable and his life story is so mirrored in his art that one is inseparable from the other. His work is so rife with the ebbs and flows of the artist’s spirituality, that as one stands before one of his paintings the observer becomes rapt and transformed. Van Gogh’s spirituality was rooted in the Dutch Reforn theology of his childhood faith. Judgement and condemnation took a back seat to consolation and solace. For the artist, Christ is the ultimate comforter whose gaze is directed to the broken in body and spirit. So compelled was Van Gogh to share this message that he felt called to follow in his father’s foot steps as a preacher. Finding himself delivering his first sermon in a Methodist pulpit in the English village of Richmond , he spoke with great passion regarding the Christian life even as his sermon may have overwhelmed his hearers as he spoke in broken English. His struggle to live out a Christian vocation was marked by rejection and disappointment. The solace he found in the hymnody and music of the faith sustained him in the face of these trials. He stated that he desired for his art , “to say something comforting as music is comforting ….something of the eternal.” The Museum of Modern Art in New York houses his masterpiece THE STARRY NIGHT. To see the painting there is unforgettable at every level. It is not only the painting itself that moves one but bearing witness to those who have made the pilgrimage there to see it. Painted in June of 1889 the mystical qualities of the painting reflect the revolutionary hermeneutic that ultimately was so unique in Van Gogh’s vision. While the church may have rejected him, the Creator not only embraced him but enabled him to transcend his own suffering and redeem it on canvas. As Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith remind us in their majestic and enthralling biography of Van Gogh, “In his reading, in his thinking, in his seeing, Vincent had long looked past the “real” night sky-the tiny, static specks and sallow light of the night paintings he detested - in something truer to the vision of limitless possibilities and inextinguishable light- the ultimate serenity….” Naifeh and White’s pioneering treatment of Van Gogh sheds new light on his tragic death and enables us to see the artist in remarkable new ways. And to see this artist’s work is indeed a privilege that we who live in the proximity of the Columbia Museum of Art will now be able to exercise, “Van Gogh and His Inspirations” opening October 4 and organized by the museum in partnership with Steven Naifeh will include twelve paintings and drawings by Van Gogh as well as over thirty works by artists who helped shape Van Gogh’s vision. This unparalleled exhibit will include lectures by Steven Naifeh and many events connected to the exhibition. Further details are available online at columbiamuseum.org Several books in addition to Van Gogh The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith have been invaluable additions to my personal library including Cliff Edward’s fascinating study Van Gogh and God, A Creative Spiritual Quest and Kathleen Powers Erickson’s At Eternity’s Gate: The Spiritual Vision of Vincent Van Gogh. In this age in which we need the transcendent to help us see anew the world around us, I urge you to make your pilgrimage to Columbia and get more than a glimpse of the eternal,