We are curious (yellow)

Arles is known among art lovers as the place in Provence where Van Gogh spent a prolific 15 months in the late 1880s finishing over 200 paintings.  During this time his work became brighter as his attention became more focused on his surroundings.  Just look at “The Yellow House,” “Bedroom in Arles,” or “The Night Café.”  Arles is also where Van Gogh had the mental breakdown where he sliced off his ear and tried to have it delivered to a 17-year-old cleaning girl at the brothel he and Gauguin frequented.  

After our 2 1/2 hour drive from Nice, we parked in a lot in the center of Arles and wandered the old downtown streets.  

We ended up at the Van Gogh Foundation.  

There was an exhibition of contemporary art inspired by Van Gogh’s burst-of-yellow Arles transformation.  

So right off the bat we have a big yellow exclamation mark hanging from the ceiling.  

Then there was a room of large paintings by Martin Disler, a Swiss artist who would have been my age if hadn’t died in his forties.  

Hyun-Sook Song a Korean artist now living in Hamburg.

A portrait of Van Gogh painted by Albert Oehlen for his film “Geel”.

And let’s not forget a room quartered off as a shrine to Van Gogh so that his “The Sheaf Binder” could be exhibited.

There were also some multimedia installations one of which started with a Japanese woodblock print of travelers in the rain and led up a stairway where the sound of rain got louder and the wall below the ceiling was painted with the dark stains of leaking water.  I guess the idea was that once you’ve seen the print then you should live the print attacking the Kantian notion of beauty involving detached contemplation.  (Nowadays detached contemplation among the crowds mobbing most museums requires the inner concentration of a Zen monk.)

The top floor of the museum had a deck overlooking the old town part of Arles.

The weather was beautiful and there were gargoyles jutting out from the eaves warding off evil spirits.  

The whole time we moseying from room to room it felt like we were the only ones in the building besides the security guard.  We were far from the Louvre.  Nothing we saw was printed on a T-shirt in the gift shop.  It was quite exhilarating.  Things did seem brighter.