For my second post, I wanted to write about perhaps one of my favorite artists from ye olden days, Vincent an Gogh (And not just because he was featured in a Doctor Who episode mind you). Van Gogh, as most people know, was not the most mentally stable and had committed himself to an asylum after cutting off his ear and giving it to a prostitute. His artwork, however, is beautiful. In his art, I truly believe, you can see how her perceived the world around him, emphasizing things that ordinary people might have overlooked or taken for granted. An example of this, is the glow around the stars in the night sky which Van Gogh seemed to emphasize in his painting Starry Night.
When I saw the photograph printed on the very next page (Page 12) Peeling Paint taken by Ernst Haas, I was reminded again of Vincent Van Gogh’s artwork. It is not in the subject of the photograph that had caught my attention but rather the over all the appearance. The vibrant red of the paint against the black iron of the bench is beautiful, not to mention how the leaves plastered against the black seem to pop out to grab your attention. I would never have guessed the subject of the photograph to be an old park bench if I had not read the little blurb beneath it. This Photograph reminds me of Van Gogh’s paintings, and how both the photographer and the artist had seen something very ordinary that most of the general populace would probably overlook or not even bat an eye at but found something extraordinarily beautiful about it. Not only that, but they both managed to capture their subject (whether it be on film or canvas) in a way that everyone else could perceive and understand the beauty of what it was that they had discovered.
Unfortunately the book Living with Art did not go into any great detail about Ernst Haas. However, by doing my own quick little research session about him, I can say that he was born in March of 1921 and died in 1986, near 100 years after Van Gogh Shot himself in 1890.
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