All about Vincent van Gogh, Rembrandt van Rijn, & vanrijngo, 
Van Gogh letters shed light on hard-working artist
An exhibition at London's Royal Academy seeks to deepen our understanding of the post-Impressionist master Vincent Van Gogh by displaying not only his paintings and drawings, but many of his letters.
I'm sure myself (vanrijngo) that the Royal Academy along with the Vincent van Gogh Foundation is not all that excited about looking to deepening the publics understanding of his paintings and drawings, along with allowing of Vincent van Gogh mindset to be read for understanding as to what was on his mind and what he was thinking at the time these paintings were supposedly being created.
In displaying a few of his many letters up along-side his works of art, ones they believe he was referring to at the time just may not coincide all that much with the work of art shown. I personally I think that this is somewhat bullshit,... for I believe it is only because of the Vincent van Gogh art lovers personal and public requests as being the cause for them allowing the supposed full discloser of these letters next to the supposed works of art themselves.
The Dutch painter wrote hundreds of letters during a productive career as an artist, most of them to his brother Theo who was an art dealer who supported him.
No doubt these hundreds of letters had a great deal to do with helping this artist along his way through his short carreer including the small and most times lacking the full support which was agreed upon and provided by his Art dealer brother Theo. Vincent continually had to reminded his art dealing brother of their meeting at the old mill,... I assume where they made their original agreement by this hand shake he was always incerting at the bottom of most his letters. Theo failed Vincent terribly as his art dealer, and in promoting his works of art.
As to their original partnership agreement, Vincent sending him all his best works of art, just ask yourselves by reading these letters,..... "did Vincent recieve a fare shake from his art dealer and brother?". Vincent's popularity amongst the colleagues of Theo was not all that popular, as most know who have read their letters and of all these aquaintences of Vincent while he himself was blooming in this fine art business of his uncle Cent's.
All we can do is read their letters, as Theo was supposed to be promoting his brothers art as his art dealer, and only after Vincent's death did Theo make this attempt. Theo died 6 months later after Vincent had shot himself. This happening was only after his sponsoring art dealer had Left him high and dry without supplies or anymore support. After failing miserably at this task of being able to sell and promote his brothers works of art It was all left up to his wife Johanna van Gogh Bonger to continue with her husbands Theo's campaign in promoting Vincent's works of art.
"The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and his Letters", from January 23-April 18, follows a 15-year research project into Van Gogh's correspondence by the Van Gogh Museum and the Huygens Institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
As you can possibly see and read for yourselves these MFA people and supposed MFA experts are trying to reshape and mold this artist of doing whatever they themselves believe he had done and meant by these letters of his. In talking about these supposed works of art of Vincent's done at the time of these letters and done at the same time period which are in their possession, sometimes or should I say most times do not add up to what had been said in the letters as far as color and canvas sizes Gogh. Well my friends, I think these MFA experts will find these letters as double edge swords, which will at the same time be open many new cans of worms for them. This is good for the art public and van Gogh lovers while being not all that great for them, for a lot of the real van Gogh's referred to by his letters are still out there in this art world of ours yet to be discovered, while a lot of them written about are in my own collection.
On display at what is predicted to be a major blockbuster exhibition are over 35 original letters, rarely displayed in public due to their fragility but which provide context for many of the 65 or so paintings hanging alongside them.
This kind of a art display with the letters coinciding with the art work may become a thing of the past when these MFA experts find out what kind of turmoil they could be causing later on. We've all heard of fact similes and copies which are as easily read as the originals, that is if they say the same things and are translated to the right meanings as so many weren't, and are still not.... so what the hell is the big deal here? Is this something that had to come about sooner or later, like it or not, because they were created by the same genius as the works of art?
The letters which contain the mundane -- as in his description of a particular kind of pencil -- and the poetic -- as when he describes the waters of the Mediterranean as "like a mackerel" and "always changing" -- challenge the notion of Van Gogh as an erratic and tortured genius.
What more can one say?
"The popular view of him is that he was this kind of crazy, unreflective artist who just painted very quickly and very spontaneously," said curator Ann Dumas. "He did paint very quickly. But a great deal of thought and preparation had gone into his work even before he put paint on canvas," she told Reuters.
You notice how the MFA experts seem to always start their statements off in a inflammatory and prejudice way when making correct statement about Vincent, just to throw one off the beaten paths and what should actually be looked at more closely. Say like the fact that Vincent being a unreflective artist who just painted very quickly and very spontaneously, and what is said after is kinda inserting in peoples mindset that the preparation and thought took one hell of a lot more time for Vincent. This is basically to allow for only the few works of art for this artists known production style and techniques for that amount of time.
Although he cut off part of an ear, committed himself to an asylum and ended his own life aged 37, Van Gogh was engrossed in his art and prepared to work hard to master techniques of perspective, colour and painting the human form.
Here we go again, these MFA adding in all the thing that they want you to remember about this artist, rather than what should really be brought up and discussed,... say like who was really responsible for these unfortunate happening in Vincent's life as the artist that he was. We all know that Vincent mastered every technique of perspective, colour and painting of the human form, while using as little line as possible.
"Much as I love landscape, I love figures even more," he wrote. "Still, it's the hardest part."
When his "The Potato Eaters" was heavily criticized, he redoubled his efforts to portray humans effectively with studies of women digging potatoes and charcoal drawings of farm hands at harvest time.
Yes, this is a very tragic life story in itself coming out to the light of day, allowing Vincent van Gogh art lovers the full understanding of quite a few of Vincent's statements in his letters about this particular happening in his life. There were many statements made about this painting in many letters, and were made in reference to this family that Vincent was friends with, while using them as models for little pay, and while sharing their family table as in this painting. Accusation about their pregnant daughter did not disrupt their friendship. This only got Vincent thrown out of his studio by his landlord, the owner of his studio and of the Catholic Church where one of their own decans was the real culpret of Vincent's supposed ducelina.
His letters also reveal his struggle with perspective, which he wrote seemed to him like "downright witchcraft or coincidence". By dividing his canvas with wires pinned across it, he was able to draw and paint "at lightning speed".
Yep,... his struggles with perspectives really slowed him down, I guess with witchcraft and what ever else they come up with, but was still able to work in lightning speeds. The biggest problem he had with his massive productions was in the drying process of his works of art. He had a tendency to stack them before they were completely dried.
Even at the very end of his life his letters reveal a man apparently more preoccupied with his craft than his personal and mental demons. Days before his death, he wrote to Theo: "(I am) applying myself to my canvases with all my attention."
Now with this statement above about applying himself to his canvases does have a tendency to make me believe he was talking in parables to his brother,... especially since I myself know more about this artist than any of these supposed MFA experts. Please do not mistake what I say and put me in the same category as these MFA experts of the VvG foundation! So you see, that leaves according to these supposed MFA experts a lot of room to bring back these thoughts of his personal and mental demons for more discussion.
In the last 70 days of his life, according to the Royal Academy, the artist painted more than 70 canvases, many of them among his most assured works. And that was despite a fear that his art had not progressed as he would have wished.
Hey,... haven't we already been versed and rehearsed on Vincent's lightning speed,.... so,... what the F-n-Hell did he do with the rest of his day,... go find miss Gatchet,... or contemplate on who he would do tomorrow?
The unfinished letter which Van Gogh had on his person at the time of his suicide in 1890 is also on display with a note scrawled in pencil by Theo that said "the letter he had on him on July 27, that horrible day."
Now,... here comes the biggest laugh of all,.... what a lie this really is and was, to put this so-called pencil writing above this partial draft of a previous letter which was already sent to Theo a couple of weeks earlier, and not to exclude this thought of possibly that peasant gal Johanna vG Bonger, Theo's wife, for maybe of herself writing it there. This does make sence since she was the one incharge of deciphering and translating his letters from French to English. The real letter that was found in his vest pocket I would guess was read at his funeral and written down later in a book on Vincent's biography called "Vincent" by Jules Meier Graefe. It wasn't all that hard for me to figure out what he meant when being able to see as Vincent was able to, and by reading these writings after finding the original work of art that the supposed letter was referring to.
Here we go on this parable thing again, for Vincent thought and believed that he was just drawing or painting, something in the metamorphosis,... which he was, and was warning his brother Theo. This was supposed to be only for his eyes, just incase he was able to see what it was Vincent was saying to him in this last letter. Unfortunately, Theo, the art dealer, was not able to see in which one of his painting or works of art he was talking about. The painting that Vincent had just painted on paper understandably escaped what his last letter meant and said about it. TFB I'm going to make this letter mean something to everyone of you reading this, for I'm going to make it a little more understandable than what Vincent did for his brother Theo, and that is by showing you the painting he had just painted connecting to this letter last letter.
Click link below to read the last letter and see Vincent Last painting http://vanrijngo.bravejournal.com/entry/14908
Theo, my brother, my art dealer, my whole life,.... I would like to warn you for It would be good for you to know the truth before it's to late. Say I was just painting, a tree or a plant or something, but instead, I painted something jagged, something in the metamorphosis, something that hurt and stings you, something people find very irritating and what people stumble over. If by chance it was ever to be deciphered, more than likely the reverse,... it wouldn't be, just tell them it's a woman or something. It would be better not offending your colleagues and against the present art establishment, rather than helping artists in the dim and distant future. No doubt the future may be very great, but as we know, not one has been there yet.
Anyway Theo might have wanted to destroy this painting before it able to be deciphered, but that did not happen,.... if only he had known which one he was talking about. As most can imagine and some see that he did or his wife Johanna did try to confuse the art world about this supposed last letter that really hasn't been mentioned all that much in this MFA world and believe it or not,... it pretty much describes his last painting on paper glued down on cardboard to a tee.
British critics have praised the show, particularly for focusing on Van Gogh and his art rather than his mental illness, self-mutilation and violent death. "The genius of this show is that the artist himself tells us in his own words to look again and see what is really there, not what our imaginations have added to it," wrote the Daily Telegraph's Richard Dorment.
Who the hell are these Brit Crits trying to fool now? I'd say the writer of this article needs to meet someone who has a name close to his last name,... and gogh lay down,... if he thinks its all about praise instead of mental illness, self-mutilation and uncalled for death this time.
Cheer up my art loving friend, for it will all be pretty much over for the MFA experts in the near future, like the blink of an eye of the blind men, if you can catch the drift.
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/vangogh/exhibition/
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/vangogh/
http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStoryPrinter=15515
Bob Miller---vanrijngo 
non-human animals are irreplaceable individuals with morally significant interests and hence rights. This includes the right to live free from unnecessary suffering and exploitation. --------------------
The Rembrandt Research Project is supposedly an interdisciplinary collaboration by a group of Dutch art historians to produce a comprehensive catalog of Rembrandt’s supposed paintings. What a farce! Its initial aim was to supposedly free Rembrandt’s oeuvre of attributions they believed to be false, and what were their own thoughts as to what painted images have harmed the image of Rembrandt as a painter. The only harm that was ever done to Rembrandt was by these blind donkey ears Dutch experts and Historians with blinders on so they cannot see or read. I'd say just as Rembrandt had drew these Dutch MFA people who represented themselves as experts in this world of fine art in Amsterdam,... in this lovely little drawing.
Supposedly over all this time, these Dutch art Historian and MFA experts of this Research Project interdisciplinary committees aims had broadened. As it had became clear to them that other research, other than their own, was also being done by other experts in their own fields, to help protect other previous investments of prior investors and ones owning these Rembrandts. This action had actually sped up the projects determinations and decisions as they continued their march right on through Rembrandt's oeuvre. They continued with their condemning of his important works of art, and at the same time was bringing more insight to his real style and techniques by condemning a lot of known works thought for years to be Rembrandts. The Questioning by the art public and museum curators did not slow down these MFA experts which had supposedly used their knowledge and expertise of Rembrandt to make their own mark upon this art world of supposed fine art. This was not enough to curb this project teem and what they had set out to accomplish by taking away this artist's works of art as so many before them would like to have done.
This world of art professionals today would like to control how Rembrandts are looked at, while trying to convince all the viewers that his works of art had many different meanings and aspects meant for the viewers, and how each viewer is supposed to perceive different meanings when looking at them. Well, they are not far from the truth when talking about the MFA experts themselves,... how they all see things differently, and have such difficulties in determining who the true artists might have been,... nothing really gets authenticated, other than impeccable provenance ones with their big bold signatures. Who the hell were these MFA people, and what were their main influences concerning art that Rembrandt and Vincent had such a hard time getting along with and didn't really care all that much for what they thought?
It is said the first phase of this great art project, during which time their team members supposedly examined almost all the relevant paintings lasting from 1968 to 1973. In this amount of time, I'd guess not really all that much was determined about his real style and techniques, although in 1982, 1986, and 1989, three different volumes, one for each date of a projected five-volume publication were published. The number of paintings said to being accepted as authentic works by Rembrandt was supposedly far smaller than what Gerson had presumed were real in 1968 as 420. The whole oeuvre was seen as approximately 300 rather than 420, although the RRP team accepted some Gerson which had been rejected earlier by him. In volume 4 published in 2005, a number of years later on his self-portraits detailed analysis of style and quality of certain—long-doubted—self-portraits, said formerly attributed to Rembrandt, it is said they produced very strong evidence that a number of Rembrandt self-portraits were in fact produced by his art students.
The knowledge thus gained indirectly placed the quest for authenticity in a wider context and contributed to the development of more-objective criteria for or against the attribution of a painting to Rembrandt. It is very unlikely that further volumes of these kind will appear after taking this long to produce something which will be considered in the future so very unproductive by other so-called MFA experts and historians.
The primary aim in these 41 years of bulshit it has taken them is to address explicitly these utterly methodological questions which has been raised by the work in volumes 1 to 3. Now they want to try and address broader art-historical and technical questions that they failed to answer earlier which would have help to determine the true authenticity of Rembrandt's works of art. It is anticipated by myself that these supposed insights about supposed authenticity accrued through the work of the RRP that were not included in the volumes 1 to 3 & 4,.... will be published in an appendix to volume 5 when hell freezes over.
vanrijngo
The discovery that a respected curator produced a set of Andy Warhol Brillo boxes after the artist’s death, passing them off as originals, has created a quandary for dealers, collectors, and scholars—including the experts in charge of authenticating the artist’s work by Eileen Kinsella
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It doesn't matter what you think about Andy Warhol. The following jaw dropping story.. in the Oct. 22 edition of the New York Review of Books, doesn't depend on your opinion. Your jaw will drop anyway.
It doesn't matter what you think about Andy Warhol. The following jaw-dropping story, as reported by Richard Dorment in the Oct. 22 edition of the New York Review of Books, doesn't depend on your opinion. Your jaw will drop anyway.
For myself, I enjoy Warhol because he discussed, in his own way, art as commodity, and by extension everything as commodity. If Marilyn Monroe or Bruce Willis can make millions of dollars essentially portraying some version of themselves in picture after picture, why can't art be valuable if it merely replicates a commodity already on offer in the marketplace? Brillo boxes are for sale; why can't replications of Brillo boxes be for sale? If people buy them, then the great circle of commodification is complete. It's a great joke, but it's also great social criticism.
Warhol silk-screened most of his later work. Silk screening is a reasonably simple process, and anyone can do it once the template is made. If the template is, say, a newspaper photograph of Marilyn Monroe, then making the template is reasonably easy too. High school kids can do it. On the other hand, who said art had to be hard?
At the height of Warhol's fame, he had everybody in the print shop, including the security guard, turning out replicas. He consulted on the colors, and on how off-register the colors should be. After that, he had his assistants do the work. Most famous artists have assistants, and the question of who did what is rarely asked, because the answers might uncover all sorts of surprises that the sentimental art-buying public might find upsetting.
Nevertheless, this silk-screening process presents special problems. After Warhol died, an organization called the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board was set up. Interestingly enough, according to Dorment, the board was made up mostly of people who are, in one way or another, beholden to the board for at least some of their income. Also, it is alleged, members of the board work with certain galleries to ensure that they offer only genuine authenticated Warhol works. This whole thing becomes trickier when you realize that the authentication board works entirely in secret, and never gives reasons for rejecting a given painting.
So we come to the issue of "Red Self Portraits," a series of silk-screened images that are exactly what they sound like. These are reasonably famous in the art world; if you've looked at catalogs of Warhol's work, you've probably seen one or more of them.
The "Red Self Portraits" were made in two batches, one in 1964 and one in 1965. The board decided that the first batch was authentic and the second batch was not, partly because Warhol was not in the room when they were run off. (He had also not been in the room - he called it "art by phone" - when other officially authentic prints had been run off, but the board does not explain its decisions.) That is at least defensible, except for one problem.
One of the new "Red Self Portraits" had been given by Warhol to his longtime business partner, the Zurich art dealer Bruno Bischofberger. The inscription on the canvas read "The Bruno B. Andy Warhol 1969." And yet, despite the fact that the artwork had been signed and dated by the artist, the board declared that the painting was not an authentic Warhol. What? That point in the narrative is where my jaw dropped.
Oh, but there's more. When a catalog of Warhol's work was issued in 1969, Bischofberger's copy of "Red Self Portrait" was chosen as the cover. Warhol, who had a hand in the selection, was so pleased with the way the catalog came out that he signed the dust jacket of a copy of the book and also the "half title" page, which is publisher's slang for the page inside the book that carries only the title without the author's name, the publisher or any of the other boiler-plate information.
And yet, in the face of all this evidence, the board issued the following decree in 2003 with regard to the Bischofberger painting: "It is the opinion of the authentication board that said work is NOT the work of Andy Warhol, but that said work was signed, dedicated and dated by him."
Not only that, the board thoughtfully stamped in big red letters on the back of the frame "DENIED," which made it essentially worthless, not only for sale but also for exhibition. Why did that happen? The board isn't saying, because the board never says.
The complete story of this symphony of pettiness and farce can be found at www.nybooks.com/articles/23153. You won't believe your eyes.
Hugger-mugger in the art world
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/12/DDBM1A3HHA.DTL
AgostinaAgostina Segatori in the Café du Tambourin, 1887Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)
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A strikingly-dressed woman is shown seated at a small table, smoking a cigarette and staring into space. The tambourine-shaped tables and bar-stools tell us that she is in the Café du Tambourin on the Boulevard de Clichy. The woman depicted is probably Agostina Segatori, the owner of this café frequented by Van Gogh and his friends. The artist paid for his meals with flower still lifes, which were then hung on the walls. It was here that Van Gogh’s paintings were seen by the public for the first time.
Vincent may have had an affair with ‘La Segatori’, an Italian by birth, although this is by no means certain. Some of the letters seem to indicate that they were more than just friends.
Parisian nightlife and scenes of people in restaurants, bars and nightclubs were popular subjects with Impressionist artists like Auguste Renoir and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
The latter painted a portrait of Van Gogh with a glass of absinthe - probably also in the Café du Tambourin. He also made a painting of a woman at a café table which Van Gogh probably saw before starting his picture of ‘La Segatori’ Both works are executed in a loose, impressionistic manner, and the figure has been placed on the canvas in a similar position.
Agostina Segatori’s portrait was painted over another work. In the x-ray we can clearly see a large-scale portrait of a woman underneath.
Well,... what do you know about this? Probably not a damn thing,... but what the hell,... here goes anyway. This is the portrait below that I bought on eBay in 1998 of this 19th century portrait of a woman, oil on canvas,... and I'm sure they will say it could not possibly be of Agostina Segatory, painted by Vincent. I would even go as far as to say even this oil on wood paneling of the artist and Agostina under the mulberry trees or quite possibly of a couple of young majestic elephant-skinned beech trees, painted in the fall, on the out skirts of Paris. This could have been painted on one of their own beach skinny dipping excursions.
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