a wheat field, with cypresses

 

Creativity is a tricky little bitch that has eluded me lately. I know not whose bed she warms these days, but I haven’t seen her in a while. This rather desperate attempt at wooing her back may seem somewhat contrived, but bear with me; I’m still trying to regain my bearings.

December past saw me roaming the bustling city streets of London. Lonely Planet held in a tight grip, I marched upstream, against the frenetic herds of Christmas shoppers on Oxford Street, making a beeline for Trafalgar Square. No, I wasn’t there for the pigeons. Nor, for that matter, for that hideous new statue they’ve erected there. Art, it seems. Bah! These days anything goes. I was there to pay homage to the masters at the National Gallery. This one building contains an astonishing collection of European artwork, including some of my favourites which I’d only seen in expensive coffee-table books and heard discussed at art-appreciation classes. Turner’s Fighting Temeraire, Monet’s Water-lily Pond, The Arnolfini Portrait. All the greats, all together.

And then, of course, there’s Van Gogh. Ah, Vincent. If you listen hard enough right now, you can hear Don McLean crooning somewhere in the distance. Well, Starry Night isn’t housed at the National Gallery but there are others. Once inside, you don’t need a map to tell you where the Van Goghs are. All you have to do is look for paintings with the most tourists surrounding them. Human psychology is funny that way – whether or not you appreciate art, everyone wants to know what a deranged genius who chopped his ear off for a nubile hooker can do with a canvas and some paintbrushes. So there you have it, Vincent is a star!

I forced my way through the mob to get as close as possible to that hideous ‘masterpiece’ of his – Sunflowers. There it was, a mess of violent yellow and brown brushstrokes bordered by an ornate golden frame, probably fitted with a million security devices. The painting is very, um, large. And yellow. Basically, it looks better in books, and not really good there either.

But as I stood there, surrounded by throngs of Chinese tourists (guidebooks and dictionaries in hand, and dictionaries for their dictionaries, and even more dictionaries) I looked to the right and noticed a much smaller painting that everyone was ignoring. One I hadn’t seen or even thought of in years. Also a Van Gogh, but not as celebrated as some of the others. ‘A Wheat Field, With Cypresses’, a name I learnt many years ago when I fell in love with it. When I joint school, I noticed a print of ‘Wheat field…’ hanging in a corner of our common room in a humble wooden frame. I spent my first evening in school sitting and staring at it hanging there from a scraggy nail. I wasn’t particularly interested in the painting, I was 12 for godsake! I was just incredibly homesick and didn’t feel like talking to the other kids who all seemed so happy and settled. So I just zoned them out and looked at the pretty colours hanging from the wall. Strangely enough, it made me feel better, maybe because it successfully managed to take my mind off the now seemingly absurd feeling of abandonment. Closer examination showed the name printed fine-print italics at the bottom – ‘A Wheat Field, With Cypresses’. Soon I settled in, life was good and the painting easily forgotten, until that day in the National Gallery when it all came racing back.

I left the crazy Orientals and made my way to this potential nostalgia trigger, but someone beat me to it – an old lady on a day out with her precious granddaughter. The child strained to look up at the painting and I watched as grandma bent down, whispered something in the girl’s ear, and lifted her so that she was eyelevel with the painting. For a few moments the girl just looked at it with apparent confusion. And then she just spread her arms wide apart, shut her eyes tight and flung her head back. I stood there puzzled as I watched her take a deep breath and then suddenly snap out of it as the duo broke into a giggly fit, delight just pouring out of them. Mind you, this all took place in a matter of a few seconds and was very cute and childish, and not some theatrical slo-mo thing that I may have led you to imagine. But, what was it that the girl was doing? What did Grandma whisper in her ear? What made her so happy after she did that?

I stood for quite some time, after they left, just gazing, trying hard to discover what was so special about this particular work of art. No matter how much I tried I just didn’t see what it was that the little girl saw. I mean, it’s truly a beautiful painting and all but it didn’t really make me feel any physical sensation. I walked through the rest of the gallery feeling like a bit of a fraud. What was it that I was missing? Did I not truly appreciate art? What gave the little girl such pleasure, but not me? Bah!

I still don’t know what it was, but here’s what I like to imagine. Grandma told Little Girl to look at the painting and feel the wind blowing through the trees. And so, when the girl shut her eyes and spread her arms, she actually did feel the breeze, and that made her happy. Sounds a little filmy, I know. But if I’m ever in the National Gallery again, I’m gonna try it. I bet it works.