The Van Gogh Challenge…well, not yet…

It seems I’m not ready just now for the challenge… Not concentrated enough on painting and drawing…

For the moment, I’m doing a lot of reading and experimenting in the raw nutrition field. And it’s  so interesting that I kind of  let painting in the background…

Not a very good start, for the challenge… But then I prepare myself for a long, healthy, if possible, life so I will have time… No big deal…

The only thing I finished lately is this nude. Hope you’ll like it…

Why do I like the Japanese?

Is it because of my blood? (AB IV- it seems that about 75 % of the Japanese have this type, the newest in the lot…)

Is it because of Vincent (whom liked them a lot and was influenced by them)? Or is it because of Kurosawa? (the Seven Samurai, the movie, which I saw when I was quite young) Could be other motives too… the novels of James Clavell, or the Black Rain of Ridley Scott…

As you see, it`s mostly esthetic or very personal motives… I don’t really know if I would like the Japanese until I will live there for a month or two… Fat chance!

Still, I was thrilled to see at the Public Library a book with the drawings of Akira Kurosawa (the portrait of Van Gogh I reproduce under is his representation of Vincent for the movie Dreams – and it was Martin Scorsese who played Vincent!)… I was thrilled (and I’m thriller every and each time) to see the Seven Samurai and to draw from it (when one thinks this film is born in 1954, 2 years before myself…)

Here it is, a sketch I like a lot, my own this time. It’s the best of the 25-30 drawings I made after the movie, using an old video player and drawn quite rapidly (since a video player stays in the Pause mode only for 1-2 minutes…) I did publish it already but I really am proud of it…

Of course, I do know that, in fact, what I like is a subjective perception, an ideea of the Japanese I made up, like a puzzle, from pieces… still, our world being what it is, my perception is as good as any other… and Hokusai, the old man crazy about sketching, is one of my masters, almost at the degree Vincent is…

Money & Fame

It seems that’s almost all the people are after… Money & fame… maybe as a favorable condition to be loved?

I don’t really know. What I DO know (from my own experience and to the degree someone can KNOW anything) is that one CAN be happy, really happy, without much money and no fame at all… Did Vincent have money? Not really. Did he have fame? not really either… An excessively pathetic article of a young and obscure critic, the appreciation of some artists friends of his and the constant support of his brother…I wouldn’t call that fame…

But then, against all odds, he was happy...Ok, not deliriously and not continuously happy… but happy as one can be in this perfect ? imperfect? world. Rajneesh (or, if you prefer, Osho) said it very well, in simple but poignant words:

“Vincent van Gogh did not sell a single painting all his life * but this didn’t matter; he was happy. If one’s paintings sell,  it’s swell. If they don’t, well, it’s the same thing. Their true value aren’t to be sold, praised, but to be created. Creating them, the artist touch to his goal. When he creates, he is divine, he is God (…) When you create something, in your own style, you become a little god. Since God is the creator, one way to touch it is to be creative.”

Rajneesh (Osho)

A non-conformist guru himself, Osho knew something about hapiness… and if, some day, money or fame (or both) occur to me, well then, it will be swell! I’ll do some travels and the good I’m able to do… But if not, I’ll be happy all the same. Creative I am. Some talent I got. Time on my hands, also…

As W.H. Auden put it: “What answer to the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to exercise one gifts?”

And here it is, my most recent painting (that I still touch some more, probably)…

* the thing with the only (or none) painting sold by Van Gogh it’s a no consequences question… He did sold more than one but, for our purpose, one, more than one or none it<s the same thing… he sold almost nothing in his life…and that’s that…

The things I do right now

I almost finish it – or maybe is it over? I try to obtain some colors and color relations that are not the most usual, mundane, ones…

Entitled ET ovum, it’s an exercise in texture and green violet harmony… also a small experiment in superrealism and in composition… I kind of like it…

… An even smaller experiment in texture and iridiscent white… I don’t know why and how but fish, serpents and all kind of other weird animals get out of me regularly… The connexion with Vincent? None. It seems that I am my own man. But, somehow, he IS in my thoughts, in the background…

But then let me loose in the south of France and you’ll see…

Finally (I have 2-3 paintings I’m still working at… but let’s say, finally…) another nude, another exercice (Vincent usually said «des études» = studies… ) in texture, composition and, of course, color…

If something catches your eye and you want to buy – it would be a first!  – just write me an email and I will give you all the details… I’m not cheap… but not very expensive either… Not yet…

Copyright for the images @ Dan Iordache, 2009

The secret geometry of chance….

…seems to be more the «sacred»… in the Shape of my heart by Sting, one of my favourite songs and artists…

But who has little to do with what I am about to write, except that this secret (or sacred, if you wnat) geometry of chance played today for me…

Reading my bible (that is The letters of Vincent Van Gogh. Penguin book classics, 1997) I fall on this phrases which resonate greatly with me, today:

…« The best thing one could do here (…) would be portrait of women and children…» p. 350, (letter 482 , the 4 th of May 1888, Arles)

…«As for me, I shall carry on working, and here and there something of my work will prove of lasting value…» p. 350, idem.

..«But the painter of the future will be a colourist the like of which has never yet been seen…» p. 350, ibidem,

…« I can’t imagine the painter of the future living in small restaurants, setting to work with a lot of false teeth and going to the Zouaves’ brothels as I do…” p. 351, idem,

…« but I’m sure I’m right to think that it will come in a later generation, and it is up to us to do all we can to encourage it, without question or complaint…» p. 351, ibidem,

(en février 1888 son ancien mentor en peinture, Mauve, décedait èa la Hague…Emu, Vincent lui dédia cette superbe peinture qu’il donna à la veuve, en souvenir)

… «I am a link in the chain of artists… I did reconcile myself with my mortality…and no longer feel so much need for diversion, I am less plagued by passions and am able to work more calmly…» p. 351, ibidem

With very slight differences (like going to the Zouaves’ brothels) I can subscribe word for word at everything he, Vincent, about 120 years ago, is telling ME (many others are, probably as receptive to his words that I am myself, but then that is THEIR problem…) this challenge is, after all, an illustration of this secret geometry of chance (I like better secret than sacred… the way Sting pronounce it it’s almost impossible to tell which is: secret or sacred…)…

P.S. did you know that sting, this truly amazing artist and exceptional individual of our time, voluntered to be brain scanned while he was composing his music? in Montreal, no less!? I saw it with my own eyes in a DVD about this experiment…)

Here it is the Sting song: http://preview.tinyurl.com/ltfgec

The Futility of Fame or…

…a publicity stunt, an experiment, guerilla marketing and such…

There will be some of you, reading this, because you are serious persons, interested in art and artists, cultivated persons for whom Vincent Van Gogh and Ion vincent DAnu means something (as it should…)

… and, on the other hand, there will a lot of you, flimsy, superficial, silly people (men and women and in between) whom will read this because innocent victim of a publicity stunt, of a silly (but interesting) experiment…

I woke up this very night with this very stupid (we’ll see how stupid!) idea: let’s see what fame and glory is made of!?

I told myself WHAT IF, instead of using my usual honey traps for glory like Vincent Van Gogh (not to mention Ion vincent  DAnu which is a tag and category which always brings me 2-3 visits per day…) I will use tags and categories like: the tits of Angelina, Angelina Jolie and her tits, the thing of Brad Pitt, hockey sucks! hockey is great! Obama sucks! Obama is great! Michael jackson is alive! and such…

Usually, when I write about myself (great subject, man!) of about Vincent Van Gogh (even greater subject, man!) or about Art (with majuscule!) or Painting or even Watercolor or Acrylics, I get, if lucky, about 50-60 visits on my blog… So lets see if I can get more, just by tagging and categorizing some stuff like the above said…

Of course it’s a shame and a publicity stunt! of course! But does it work? THAT IS THE QUESTION ! (I’ll add another time Hamlet and Shakespeare as a category… Today we want to see if this Internet glory which is the big number of visits, views and page visited is – or is not- a futility! Right now, at this very moment (I did save the draft and looked…) I have a big number of visitors: 1 (one! uno! un! unu! eintz and so on and so forth…) But then 1 is better than none!

I will start writing those guerilla marketing honey traps and see what happens… And so that my very faithful fans (the 1 I already mentioned, for instance) will be not too disappointed, I will put also a recent reproduction of a sketch, to make his (or more probably HER) visit worthwhile…

And her name is Jade (a good one!)

You have to recognize, although, that my thirst of glory is moderate… I could have used tags like sex and porn and got automatically thousands and thousands of horny, cultivated people on my blog… Next time I will inform you about the results… (for the record, I will use also one of my best honest trap, the category “horse drawing” and “samurai” to attract some more visitors… this tags did good for me in the past… thanks, horses and samurai!)

And by the way, I LOVE Angelina Jolie tits and lips and she & Brad Pitt really really are GREAT GREAT actors… Friends of mine, whom bought a painting or two…

Public amuser stuff…

More drawings (I told you already I did 10 in 200 minutes? so don’t expect that much…) and photos from the Familifête du Parc Bussière…

The model and the caricature…

The caricature (more like a drawing, although…) and the photo…

I like this photo and probably I will do another one or two, more elaborate, portraits… Except for the piercings and the Playboy bunny she is a beauty, isn’t she?