Posts Tagged ‘mothers’

Dossier Van Gogh: gek of geniaal? (mad or genius)

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

I am no art fan, but I had heard of Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890). Shortly after moving to Amsterdam, I found out that Van Gogh was in fact Dutch and that the Van Gogh museum was only 5 minutes cycling distance from where we lived. Naturally, I was excited with the prospect of becoming more knowledgeable about the fellow and his artwork. However, my expectations must have been set a bit too high… As I was leaving the museum, I could not help but think that I had paid too much entrance fee (€14) for a guy who was overrated because of a bunch of farm pictures he had painted. He was little known and little appreciated for his art during his short life span of 37 years. It was after his death that he became famous largely due to his sister-in-law’s continuous efforts to promote his work. At that time, I thought she had done an outstanding marketing job and made a nice living out of it…

When I saw the ad for ‘Dossier Van Gogh: gek of geniaal (=mad or genius)?’ exhibition at Dolhuys museum, I could not help but feel a pang of sympathy for Van Gogh… Even long after his death, people are still debating whether his paintings were the fruits of a sick mind or a genius. More than 150 psychiatrists have tried to pinpoint the cause of his mental ailments and have come up with some 30 different diagnoses… What difference does it make? Who cares?

Creativity requires some ‘craziness’.

Most of us live by gender norms, cultural norms, social norms, family norms, and other you-name-it norms. Most of the time we adopt these norms automatically—without even giving them a second thought, because they help us function smoothly in dealing with others. We all have this urge to want to ‘fit in’ and the norms we live by define what is ‘normal’. What is our first reaction when we meet someone who is not ‘normal’? We label them as crazy or ingenius or we simply can’t believe our eyes…

  • “Wow! That’s totally crazy!”
  • “That’s awesome! She must be a real genius!”
  • “That’s insane! Why would anyone do that sort of thing?”
  • “I can’t believe it!”

Isn’t it then ‘normal’ that we develop a tendency to label those who live outside the norms as ‘insane’?

(Here is some crazy behavior: In Turkey, it is customary for men to kiss each other on the cheek upon seeing each other—twice!—and sometimes with an accompanying hearty hug. I still get amused by the disbelieving look on the face of a ‘civilized’ western guy when caught off guard with this custom—which is totally ‘normal’ given Turkish cultural norms of course…)

“There is a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line,” says Oscar Levant (1906 – 1972). Is there really a fine line between genius and insanity? Or are genius and insanity the two ends of a spectrum? What does the spectrum look like? A line with two opposite ends or a circle with no end?

Artists are creative folks. Their courage to live outside the norms enables them to create some awesome stuff. They keep at it in the face of financial difficulty, disapproval from others, living as an outcast. I find it remarkable and praiseworthy. If anything, we all need to be a bit crazier in order to turn on the light of creativity in our lives…

Creativity has no place to blossom in a norm-defined life.


~~~


Johanna Gesina van Gogh – Bonger (1862 – 1925)

I owe an apology to this lady, who was Van Gogh’s sister-in-law. I was too quick to label her as just-a-smart-marketer of Van Gogh’s work after his death. My perception of her at the museum does great injustice to her life and personality. She had been married to Van Gogh’s brother Theo for only 1.5 years before Theo died. I read the memoir that her son (Van Gogh’s nephew) wrote for her and I was quite touched by her story.

Here is an excerpt from a letter she wrote to a friend taken from the memoir:

“The letters have taken a large place in my life already, since the beginning of Theo’s illness. The first lonely evening which I spent in our home after my return I took the package of letters. I knew that in them I should find him again. Evening after evening that was my consolation after the miserable days. It was not Vincent whom I was seeking but Theo. I drank in every word, I absorbed every detail. I not only read the letters with my heart, but with my whole soul. And so it has remained all the time. I have read them, and reread them, until I saw the figure of Vincent clearly before me. Imagine for one moment my ex-perience, when I came back to Holland – realizing the greatness and the nobility of that lonely artist’s life. Imagine my disappointment at the indifference which people showed, when it concerned Vincent and his work…. Sometimes it made me very sad. I remember how last year, on the day of Vincent’s death, I went out late in the evening. The wind blew, it rained, and it was pitch-dark. Everywhere in the houses I saw light and people gathered around the table. And I felt so forlorn that for the first time I understood what Vincent must have felt in those times, when every body turned away from him, when he felt “as if there were no place for him on earth…” I wished that I could make you feel the influence Vincent had on my life. It was he who helped me to accommodate my life in such a way that I can be at peace with myself. Serenity – this was the favorite word of both of them, the something they considered the highest. Serenity – I have found it. Since that winter, when I was alone, I have not been unhappy – “sorrowful yet always rejoicing,” that was one of his expressions, which I have come to understand now.”

Johanna made a great contribution to history by relentlessly promoting Van Gogh’s work. She was anything but ‘just-a-smart-marketer’.

More than that, she was an admirable mother.

~~~

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Honolulu

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

Mother considered that a moment, then got up, went to her wardrobe chest, and opened the bottom drawer. She rooted about inside, finally pulling out a carefully folded wrapping cloth. Sitting again, she unfolded it: it was a beautiful patchwork cloth with a green border enclosing a checkerboard of dozens of little rectangles and squares—red, yellow, gold, green, brown, blue, and black.

“You see these?” She pointed out a half dozen of the black rectangles, scattered randomly across the checkerboard. “I added these on the day my mother died, many years ago, because that was my mood that day. There is no pattern to where I placed them, as there is no sense to be made of death. One’s eye may not go to them first, but next to them the blues look bluer, the reds richer, the golds more brilliant. Without them the cloth is pretty, but without character or contrast.”

“Yes,” I said quietly. “I see.”

excerpt from Honolulu (2009) by Alan Brennert

When I read this, I felt the truth of these words reverberate deep in my bones.

Lately, I have been thinking about all the happiness wishes that we generously bestow upon each other on birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, etc. When I was pregnant, I wished for a happy, healthy baby with 10 fingers and 10 toes who would grow up with both parents in wealth and prosperity—and so did my friends and everybody else in my family. Who wishes it to be otherwise?

However, things are not always rosy in life.

There is nothing wrong with making a ‘good’ wish, but when it does not materialize… What does it mean? Did I not make a wish from the bottom of my heart? Or do I not deserve to be granted my wish? Or does God play dice with our lives?

When something ‘bad’ happens, then what? Am I being punished? Or were there not enough ‘good’ wishes made for me? Or was it my fault?

When I was agonizing over the unfortunate events that befell me, a friend of mine recommended a book to me: When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold S. Kushner. I was happy that somebody finally had an answer for me! And yes, I presume to be a ‘good’ person :-) Anyways, to cut a long story short, the book did not answer all of my questions. Since then, I have been grappling with this question and looking at other people’s lives…

And then, of course, there is all this new age stuff that talks about ‘Positive Thinking’ or the ‘Law of Attraction’. So in a way, I must have attracted all those unfortunate events because of my ‘faulty’, ‘negative’ thought patterns… Okay, I confess, maybe partly so :-)

But then, can someone explain to me all those innocent babies born into poverty or physical disability? Did their negative and faulty thoughts in the womb (or before the womb–if you believe in reincarnation) materialize when they were born???

In Alan Brennert’s book, when her mother explained to Jin (who was named ‘Regret’ at birth, because she was not a boy) why she put the black rectangles on the patchwork cloth, something hit home with me. That was it! This was a beautiful and poignant answer to my question. So, thank you Alan for putting it so eloquently!

Honolulu is the story of a Korean picture bride in the early 1900s. It is a story of oppressions: oppression of Korean women by their husbands and families, oppression of Koreans by the Japanese, oppression of immigrants and local Hawaiians by the White ‘masters’—called the “Big Five”.

Despite the dismal aspects of an oppressed life, Alan does a wonderful job of weaving a story of perseverance, endurance and hope.

That’s what life is about, I guess: The good and the bad together. Just like night and day, just like laughter and tears, just like birth and death, just like yin yang. Both good people and bad people get their share of good things and bad things in life.

If there were no darkness, we would never appreciate light. But then, it is the presence of light that makes darkness a ‘bad’ thing. Imagine if we all lived in the dark and never knew sunlight… Because we would not know otherwise, we would continue to live in darkness without seeking light. Now that I think about it, maybe that’s what happens with people who are depressed. Having been there and done that, I know how difficult it is to get out of that big, black hole. “What’s the point?” I used to ask myself, because I could not see any light.

Yet that is what life is about—with all its ups and downs. There is definitely thunder and rain sometimes, but also sunshine afterwards… And, I must say, even sunshine gets hot and boring if it lasts too long :-)

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