marco dadone - realized with SIGMA fp and 40 mm Art -

 

These dawns

 

  with the sun rays pervading the dark green of the olive trees

turning into gold the yellow blades

full of millions of white little snails,

were painted by a solitary man during his walks before the daylight

 

 

 

 

 

Between dried poppies

and strange creatures from the hotness of summer,

 

Vincent Van Gogh came here

 

 

at first hardly able to talk,

a heart full of sorrow and a soul full of visions,

stayed one year and slowly began,

again,

to paint,

to unravel the essence of things

to see the unseen

 

 

                     

 

 

He spent there 53 week from the 8th of May, 1889, and painted 150 works of art

which means:

one,

every two or three days.

 

 

 

“the emotions that take hold on me in the face of nature go as far as fainting,

and then the result is a fortnight during which I am incapable of working”

(from a letter to Albert Aurier, 9 february 1890)

 

 

And at the end of his provencal time he would write to his sister:

“I worked like a madman”.

 

Once he began again to paint

he couldn't stop anymore:

life, grief, pain, joy, was all in there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's coming there at the end of July

- as I did -

 

that You can feel the heart of Vincent Van Gogh beating

outside Saint Rémy de Provence,

where the fields begin in front of the peaks of the Alpilles.

 

 

 

That’s where Vincent is still walking

 

brush in one hand

 

canvas on this shoulders

 

swept on his forehead

 

infinity in his eyes

 

                     

 

He worked so deeply that now,

being here,

everything seems real just and only to the extent that it reflects his paintings.

 

And it’s so strange to wait for the sun to appear through the trees…

You’d expect that it could come out just made of oil paint,

to place itself amongst the rapid brushstrokes of the trees and the sky.

 

 

 

I discovered that it's here that under the tears of a wind called mistral,

the leaves of the sycamore trees are shaken

in the absolute blue,

as in a dream

 

 

 

and the cicades sing endlessy

on the branches and stems

like a mantra from other dimensions

 

 

 

 

I discovered that it’s here that the sight turns more intimate

 

 

and slides through shapes and time:

 

 there’s a road

to follow

into the nowherelands of the golden fields,

 

 

where all paths bring elsewhere

and the unnaturally enhanced colors take men hostage

in their territories.

 

I went there.

          

 

 

 

 

and in the middle of the wheat field

I paced my easel

and tried to paint,

until the sun pervaded my senses,

my longtime friend the crow.

 

 

That was until I realize that this is the land where men become their paintings.

 

So, without a sound, I turned

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It had been easy then,

as a blue and black bird

through the corridors of the sky

to begin again my search, 

 

first in the tiny streets of Saint-Remy, between sun and shadows

 

 

 

then into the old monastery of Saint Paul de Mausole and its asylum.

Well the main door was locked,

but crows know other ways.

 

I went inside from a tiny window

and stopped on the floor

where Vincent himself walked on while going out in the fields,

like an early morning thief,

to steal the eternity on a canvas

 

 

 

and in a vertigo fever,

searching for more shadow relief for my shining new feathers

I entered the little church.

 

I saw the chair there,

behind the corner

the single one submerged in yellow light

a little apart from the others

where Vincent used to pray,

and still does from time to time

 

 

Then  upstairs,

his room

 

 

I knew that to see beyond

is a strange gift

it can make a soul explode.

 

 

 

 

But as Provence in summer is something between a place and a vision,

 

use that chance,

 

try to find a little of those sparks and

dream, Your own way, always,

and more than ever, if Your heart bleeds.

 

 

....

 

One last thing:

 

take a stroll along the asylum,

towards the lavender little field and then

until You'll meet the half-dried sunflower,

which seems like it’s about to speak... he is,

and that is what he would tell You:

 

 

“in every shade

behind the simple shapes

around a reflection

beside those shadows

whenever You see something more

that is Van Gogh’s garden”.

 

 

 

 

                                      

                                         

                                                                                                                                                                                                                

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                 And, dont' shoot at the crows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-----------------

 

 

Shot in Saint Rémy de Provence, end of July 2020

using

SIGMA fp

with

SIGMA 40 mm f1.4 Art.

 

by marco dadone