Van Gogh and Vivian Maier

I have seen people weeping when overwhelmed by the power of a work of art. I wish I had this kind of sensitivity, but I don't. When I burst into tears, it is because of human beings and their tragic destinies.

One of the most heartbreaking stories among artists is the one of Vincent van Gogh. The painter whose name became almost a synonym for his art, a cursed soul that has been struggling between genius and insanity (I am not strictly speaking mad, for my mind is absolutely normal in the intervals, and even more so than before. But during the attacks it is terrible—and then I lose consciousness of everything. But that spurs me on to work and to seriousness, as a miner who is always in danger makes haste in what he does, he wrote [1]), with a feverish talent that distinguished him from anyone before or after, this person so desperate for recognition as anyone involved in creative activities can be, died without having sold any of his works, that later would be globally considered as masterpieces.

Vincent was thirty-seven [when he shot himself]. The abbot in Auvers refused to allow a funeral service in his church. Van Gogh was foreign and Protestant and a suicide.

So Theo (his brother) bought a plot in a new cemetery on a barren plateau above the town, a distance from the church. Vincent was in his element, among the wheat fields, under the sun and stars, an outlier, as always. [1]

By a strange coincidence it was in Amsterdam (at FOAM), a few hundreds of meters away from the van Gogh Museum, that I saw the exhibition of Vivian Maier, a photographer with a similar fate:

Vivian Maier (New York, 1926 - 2009) worked as a professional nanny throughout her life. In her free time, she documented life in large American cities such as New York and Chicago, although no one in her immediate circle ever saw the results. She left behind an imposing body of work, consisting of 100,000 negatives. Its quality can be compared to that of famed contemporaries like Joel Sternfeld, Joel Meyerowitz, Elliot Erwitt and Garry Winogrand. [...]

In 1951 she became a nanny, work she continued to do for the rest of her life. Those who were acquainted with her characterised Maier as extremely intelligent, eccentric, curious and a free spirit. She documented all that caught her attention, in photos as well as sound and motion pictures. On the street she was fairly inconspicuous: she wore a hat, a long dress, a woollen coat and men's shoes, and she never left the house without a camera around her neck. [2]

Although, it seems, Vivian Maier had not received any formal education on Art or Photography, with my modest knowledge on the topic, I can say that her work is comparable to those of the legends of street photography.

In the 1990's, because of financial problems, she had to stop taking photographs. Her photo archive with the rest of her possessions were auctioned because she could not afford to pay her rent.

In 2008 Maier suffered a nasty fall on the ice in Chicago and died in April 2009. She left behind an immense photographic archive. [2]

The work of V.M can be seen at: www.vivianmaier.com


But then again, Vivian Maier was blessed like those glorious few, who manage to spend most of their lives doing what they love the most.

Real artists paint things not as they are, but as they feel them.
Vincent



[1] http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/feb/05/van-gogh-courage-and-cunning/?insrc=whc
[2] www.foam.com, from the catalogue of the exhibition