The 2017 Fabulous Forgeries challenge was to find a painting by one of the Masters, and either copy it, re-create it with a “twist” or paint my own original composition using the style of the master.
I was determined to find a master’s work that had a book in it—you know, being a book artist and all.
The best masterwork I found was Vincent van Gogh’s Still Life with Bible. Like Vincent, I painted it in one day. Also like Vincent, the painting was more of an exercise than a statement piece (at first, at least).
According to an 1885 letter to his brother, Theo, he painted this to illustrate a point about color. He and his brother had been discussing the use of black in paintings.
I’m sending you a still life of an open, hence an off-white Bible, bound in leather, against a black background with a yellow-brown foreground, with an additional note of lemon yellow. I painted this in one go, in a single day. (from www.vangoghletters.org)
Van Gogh scholars also believe there was symbolism in this painting, unlike most of his other paintings, which were more or less literal depictions (haystacks are just haystacks).
Vincent van Gogh’s original Still Life with Bible
The Bible belonged to his father (not the family Bible, but a gift, possibly from a member of the congregation). The snuffed candle represents his father’s recent death—just a few months before this was painted. And the book in the foreground (La Joie de Vivre by Emile Zola) was a nod to van Gogh’s belief that modern literature carried equally important lessons on life. The Bible is open to the Book of Isaiah, and the passage Isaiah 53:3 is paralleled by the plot and characters of Zola’s book. (from www.vggallery.com)
When I started my forgery, I was also working through an exercise in painting. My challenge was using a color palette and creating brushstrokes that are not my own native style. That’s the joy of Fabulous Forgeries for us—trying on someone else’s style to see how it fits.
Afterwards, this “exercise” took on a new dimension as I researched and learned more about the painting. Like van Gogh, I also seek to glean life’s lessons from modern literary sources.
I contemplated which book I could have painted into the foreground instead of La Joie de Vivre. Some candidates include: The Greatest Salesman in the Word (Mandino), The Witch of Portobello (Coehlo), Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (Satchidananda), Daily OM (Taylor) and The Art of Happiness (Dali Lama).
These are some of my reference books for daily journal reflections. All of them parallel teachings in the Bible, but in ways that relate well to current life. To me they represent the many different hiking trails available, all leading to the top of the mountain.
What book would you paint next to the Bible?
