You know those animations that you see on Facebook occasionally, which starts with a Van Gogh painting and then moves through it and onto another landscape and it goes through lots of his paintings like a walk and it’s almost like a story? I’ve seen three or four of those, but it seems it’s always with Van Gogh, and I don’t see why.
It’s like with that stupid ‘Cups’ song from ‘Pitch Perfect.’ It’s a cool technique and all, but why isn’t it ever used with a different song, a different arrangement. It’s like a whole instrumentation that hasn’t been properly explored, much less exploited.
Same with Van Gogh. He was a great artist, sure, and well worthy of all the adulation he did not receive in life, partly because his art was ahead of his time, and partly because he was a creepy dude, a little bit nuts and super hard to get along with and even other people in the art community didn’t like him much. But, he is not the only artist the world has ever produced. I’d love to see that animation technique applied to Monet, although it might be mostly water lilies and a girl with an umbrella here and there, and Gauguin, now there would be an interesting trip, or Toulouse Lautrec, ooh, la, la, or Manet… hell, yes, Manet, you could do one just with Dejeuner Sur l’Herbe, there’s a full length film of vignettes on that canvas. You couldn’t do it with any abstract artists, but that’s O.K., because I don’t find their work interesting any way.
Surrealists, though….wait a minute, I think I have seen one with Hieronymus Bosch. A weird, little hellscape.
Anyway, it’s a very clever technique and I look forward to somebody actually making a feature length film in this style one day.
Van Gogh Somewhere Else
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