I have encountered a specific and unusaul Van Gogh panting twice this year. The first time was with the youth group on the way to camp. We took them to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. We turned the group loose asking them to find a piece of art they liked and then take a selfie with it. Later, we had them share the picture and talk about the art they loved and why. It’s a great way to see a museum through other people’s eyes.
I stopped for a long time and look at a paining called Olive Trees. It was painted in 1889 while Van Gogh was hospitalized and trying to recover from a mental breakdown. He was initially only allowed to look through the windows, but eventually was given greater freedom and went out into the olive groves to paint. He was drawn to the olive trees. They reminded him of the struggle of Jesus on his long night of anguishing prayer - Van Gogh was having his own moment of torment. The olive tree had also become a symbol of resurrection. In part, its gnarled tree trucks and extreme age gave testimony to life surviving in the greatest struggles.
In Kansas City, the sign next to the painting told of a recent and odd discovery - a tiny grasshopper encased in paint. It indicated that the paining was created outdoors, probably in the olive garden. The close up was very clear, but I could not find the carcass and eventually gave up frustrated. I did not pick it as my favorite.
Last week, we went to Dallas to see a new exhibit that reunites the olive grove paintings for the first time in one hundred years. It was amazing and enlightening. There, in the center of the exhibit, was the painting I met in the summer. This time, the placard described the art curator’s surprise upon examining the surface of the painting and finding footprints that had been made in the wet paint. Again, I searched the painting. I got closer and closer until the guard rebuked me and made me move further away. I asked her if she knew where the footprints were. She did not. I looked it up online and finally found a helpful guide and was able to see the insect prints.
Van Gogh named these paintings, “consolatory painting[s]” for they offered hope and comfort in a difficult world. He was trying to paint his way back to health. He took a path through an olive garden. His mental illness finally overwhelmed him in 1890. He died without every seeing his paintings displayed or loved. He did not know that his struggle would one day inspire many of us. Like tiny footprints in the paint, Van Gogh’s images testify to the muddy feet of our existence, of the heavy steps that it takes to get through this world. He reminds us to see its beauty. He encourages us to see it anew. I’m glad I walked through the garden with him.
It makes me wonder who around us is struggling and does not know what a beautiful gift they are to the world? It makes me want to “see” those that are struggling and encourage them. It makes me want to be alert, unlike the disciples who slept in the olive garden.