Gary J. Kirkpatrick Art and Travel Blog
Expressionistic art
Gary Kirkpatrick 
This is my wife Peg. We’ve been married for 35 years. She still has that great smile, a window into who she is.
I’ve been learning how to use a Wacom table to draw and paint. This is my second portrait. I am using the tablet with GNU editor. I am not copying, just drawing and painting, creating colors of my own.
Maria Linares, pianist, Berklee School of Music
“Loving Vincent” is a flick about Vincent Van Gogh made entirely of paintings done in his thick paint, swirly, expressive style. There are 65,000 paintings in all, each done on glass plates. The plates were first placed before the filmed of the costumed cast members, reducing drawing time dramatically, and making it possible to make this movie with just 125 and not, say, the 10,000 artists it would have taken to cover an area the size of London or Manhattan if each plate were laid out in the original size. All this adds up to an unusual experience and a total immersion in the visual world of the artist. But there’s more.
The film could have suffered significantly from the flaw that plagues musicals, whose stories often serve as an excuse for the next number. Loving Vincent’s story line, however, is not so thin. Its basis is writing that challenges the initial contention that Van Gogh committed suicide.
The movie opens with the postman possessing a returned letter addressed to Vincent’s brother Theo. He recruits his son Armand to hand deliver the letter. Armand soon finds that Theo is dead, so he looks for an alternative. The film is a series of interviews of the people who knew Vincent, all portrait subjects, interviews that further what turns into an investigation of the death of the artist. As things unfold we are provided a picture of the life of Vincent as well as his death, some interviewees corroborating the suicide theory, while others leave us doubting that verdict.
Several issues emerge that lead us to question the suicide conclusion. Having pulled that trigger you would have left black powder marks on your clothes and hands, and the accounts show conflicts in that regard. Also we are told of the persistent ridicule and bullying by town youths, any one of which could have had motive, perhaps even the one who later confessed to mistreating Vincent in his youth. Then there is Vincent’s state of mind. “Loving Vincent” is what Van Gogh wrote in each of his letters to his brother Theo, with whom he had a close relationship. Thus Vincent was not entirely alone and unloved by family, and he was close to some of the interviewees as well.
There are several other observations of interest. First, Vincent wrote, “I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say: he feels deeply, he feels tenderly.” Are those the sentiments of someone who would end his own life? Perhaps but perhaps not. Second, Vincent’s lack of commercial success could certainly contribute to his perception of self-worth. However Monet, the most famous of painters, had recently highly praised Vincent’s art, and Vincent sold a painting, his first. Third there is the odd location and angle of the lethal wound. People who attempt suicide with a gun usually go for the head not the stomach. None of these observations are conclusive of course, but there is certainly enough to cloud the official verdict, and to give substance to what would otherwise be an art slide show with an excuse for a story.
The colored images flicker in a way that other animations I have seen do not, adding an element of visual intrigue to that surrounding conflicting images of Vincent’s life and death. They also add an element of brain fatigue. Fortunately the flash backs in black and white give much-needed rest for the eyes.
This is a unique film about a unique man making unique art. Check it out – and stay through the credits. You’ll be treated to Lianne La Havas’s deep toned charming rendition of Starry Starry Night.
Rotten Tomatoes reviews Robert Kodger review Tim Brayton review Vanity Fair: The Van Gogh Mystery
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A friend and I went to Auvers-sur-Oise, which is not too far from Paris. It is here that Vincent Van Gogh lived his last months. While he lived in this town Van Gogh did a painting of the church, now one of his more famous paintings among the 800 he squeezed into his short life. Here is my rendition, in memory of this man who contributed so much to art and who received so little in return.

The first of the following drawings I did at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which displayed a photo of a young Van Gogh. This and other early photos are a stark contrast to the gaunt and haunted look of Vincent’s later self portraits, which are widely seen. Here is a more rare glimpse of the man.
In case you need a touching moment, here’s Lianne’s rendition of Starry Starry Night. Don Mclean gave light to this song that will live as one of the most touching eulogies of all time, whose disturbed mind gave us so much beauty, so much innovation.
Nicholas Roerich (1874 St Petersburg-1947 Nagar India) was the teacher of a British American named Ralph Houstin, whom I followed during my Buddhist years. He was a noted as a proponent of peace, painter, writer, archaeologist, and a theosophist. He was born to a well-to-do family, and graduated from both art and law school. He directed Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, from 1906 to 1917. He was President of the “World of Art” society from 1910 to 1916. Later he earned nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize long list, and the Roerich Pact was signed by the United States in April 1935. Formally entitled the Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historic Monuments, it commits signatories to the preservation of cultural heritage in time of war.
Nicolas also was a stage designer. Diaghilev’s “Ballet Russes”, Borodin’s “Prince Igor,” and Stravinsky’s magnificent “Rite of Spring ” (both costumes and set) are on his list of credits.
Roerich engaged in a number of expeditions in Asia, and at one point was detained by the government for five months in Tibet under harsh winter conditions. I read his account in a book called, “Altai Himalya.” His purposes appear to have been archaeological but he asked for and received support from the Bolshevik government, promising to keep on eye on the British. He resided in the U.S. in the run up to WWII, becoming close to Henry Wallace, V.P. under Roosevelt and later a presidential candidate, who was a fan of both Roerich and his wife Helena, whose letters were published.
The Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York City is a major repository of his c work. Roerich societies continue to promote his mystical teachings.
His paintings are in the Roerich Musem, the Department of the State Museum of Oriental Arts in Moscow, the Roerich Museum at the International Centre in Moscow and the the Russian State Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. There is a collection in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, in the Art Museum in Novosibirsk, Russia, the National Gallery for Foreign Art in Sofia, Bulgaria, the Art Museum in Nizhny Novgorod Russia, the National Museum of Serbia, the Roerich Hall Estate in Naggar, India, the Sree Chitra Art Gallery, Thiruvananthapuram, India;[17] and several of his larger works in The Latvian National Museum of Art. I did the drawing you see here at the Borsa Museum in Riga, Latvia, at a temporary exhibit of this work.
In June 2013 his Madonna Laboris sold at auction ÂŁ7,881,250, the highest price ever for Russian art at auction. This piece, like so many, are in a dreamy purple haze with strong religious overtones.
I did these pen and ink drawings at the Berklee School of Music student concerts at Sala Russafa, Nov 11-13, 2017, except for the one at the bottom, which was at the year-end performance of the Valencia campus of the Berklee School of Music in pen and ink.
Couple looks out of windows as the solar eclipse reaches its apex
Did Caravaggio Predict Trump” uses the image of my original acrylic painting Trumpcissus, available on my website.. This mixed media creation adds new dimensions to the painting by using a news style magazine cover.
Limited Edition (100) prints with original signature are made with a giclee printer, producing the highest quality prints obtainable. The Unlimited Edition is a high quality print on watercolor type paper. Certificate of authenticity on Limited Edition Prints
digital painting, prints only
Among the notable things in Vilnius, the capitol of Lithuania, are the spires and the architecture, featured in the background of this painting. Lithuania is nominally a Roman Catholic country, with 75% of the population purportedly members. However the statistics show that half the population does not believe in the Christian deity. I have portrayed the irony of this apparent contradiction through the unusual placement and distortion of the spires, which serve at once to unite and divide the couple.
After a few days in the Latvian countryside, Kuldiga being of most interest, we hopped the bus taking us from Riga to Vilnius, the only Baltic republic we have yet to visit. It’s a four-hour drive in the cold gray weather through flat, unremarkable countryside. A few days later I had to make a return visit, having left my Italian passport on a pharmacist’s counter. It was waiting for me at the Italian embassy in the heart of the old town. It was just as uneventful.
The Baltic countries do not get much attention in US history classes but there is much of value and interest. We’ve been to the Ducal Palace, reconstructed on site and now offering a rather detailed story of the country, much more important up to the 1800’s than it is now. But the people here have Russia very looming on their borders, a Russia whose history of occupation dates to around 1700, with but a brief respite between the wars before the occupation resumed as the Nazis retreated. In their world view, the history of their relationship with Russia is not a side-show, of course, nor is the past respect shown them by other European nations. I expect to post more on this.
The University of Vilnius is just a few minutes from our plain vanilla apartment. I have posted some photos of the delightful, on the one hand, and strange art on the other hand, here University’s mural and fresco.
Not far from us as well is the Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum, home of the paintings of Lithuania’s most famous painter, who came to light in Paris after escaping from his home country subsequent to the Soviet takeover. It is art worth seeing. His paintings are what I would term transitional, bridging the gap between the figurative and the abstract. Over time he increasingly removes references to the substance of the image until he gets to the essence, still figurative but just a tad away from abstraction. These photos are from the museum that bears his name, Vytautas Kasiulis
The old town section is, like that of Tallinn and Riga to the north, is a World Heritage site and the main attraction.
No visit to any of these countries would be complete without a visit to what the locals call “The Dark History,” referring to the Nazi and Soviet occupations. Here as in Riga you can visit the Gestapo/KGB head quarters for a look at this grim period. It does not seem that the extent of spying on its citizens compares with what happened in East Germany, but the torture, imprisonment and deportation to the sparsely populated areas of the Soviet Union are, and they’ve well documented in the museum. The museum visit includes the dank cellar with its torture, isolation and execution chambers.
I’ll have some notes on the more cherry subject of the hope-you-like-pork cuisine – and what other observations I might have about the culture, such as the dearth of beauty parlors. They have salons where you can get your hair combed out, though.
