Victor Ghoshe's Blog, page 2

Look, what has happened to us…

[image error]

Look – what fate has done,

We were walking our own paths

and one day we came along…

for a single hope, for a destiny unknown

we kept walking, and yet we felt at home.

Then the dreams came – vivid and clear

and there was nothing to fear…

 

It was Love; it is Love

and Love shall always be…

with us, as the key…

for us to be together…… as the breather,

for both the hearts…. Love outsmarts…

us all…. and we suddenly feel small.

 

we are brought together by fate,

But it is Love which made us true soulmates

 

Look – what Love has done,

It took two of us and made us one….!

 

02-01-2018

The lesser-known Van Gogh: His little-known masterpieces and stories behind

We have all heard tell of the ear, the mental instability, seen then snapped our annoyingly necessary selfies with Starry Night, but to better understand Vincent van Gogh is to push past the surface mythos and delve into a wider understanding of his art and personal history. 

Standing in front of the ‘Starry Night’ at the Ontario Art Gallery in November 2016, I lost the track of time. I was attending this well-Curated ‘Mystic Painting Show’ of Van Gogh, Monet and other American and Canadian masters and for the first time in my life I felt what numbless was and what a ‘moment of selflessness’ was.

Well this is a story of Van Gogh’s lesser known works. because that’s what I have learnt through my years – if you want to know the person know him through his smaller works, day to day chores…..the way he/she walks, the way he/she talks…..and expresses gratitude or wrath. Here’s some of the insights that I have discovered through the master’s lesser known works.

The great Dutch master of modernity lived a famously tortured life (thanks to a series of letters between himself and his art-dealer brother, Theo, a substantial personal history remains). He sought truth and reason through the combined means of religion and visual art and ended his short but brilliant existence in 1890, after his two most prolific years. He left us, thankfully, an oeuvre of paintings which inarguably progressed the direction and vision of western art. Lets take a minute to investigate 10 lesser-known masterpieces found immaculately reproduced in Phaidon’s monograph, Van Gogh.

PÈRE TANGUY, 1887

[image error]   The sitter in this portrait was the color merchant Julien Tanguy, a Breton peasant who had settled in Paris and ran a small paint shop in the Rue Clauzel, much frequented by vanguard artists. His shop became a kind of gallery of their paintings, for Tanguy would take paintings on deposit as credit for the materials he supplied. Van Gogh painted two portraits of “Père” Tanguy in the autumn and early winter of 1887, both against a background composed of the Japanese color woodcuts that he had begun to collect, first in Antwerp and then more avidly in Paris. Tanguy is placed massively in the center of the canvas, facing the spectator. But the Paris merchant is presented not against an urban or even French setting, but in an imaginary context composed of Japanese seasonal scenes and costumed figures.

Although this choice of background indicates van Gogh’s evident preoccupation with Japanese prints—he also made individual copies of selected print at this date—the painting does not indicate any profound influence of Japanese graphic styles or perspectival devices upon his work. But it is important to note that the motifs represented in the prints anticipate those that van Gogh would shortly resume when he left Paris and moved once again into a more rural setting—seasonal landscapes and portraits of regional types in costume.

GAUGUIN ’S CHAIR,  1888

[image error]   In October 1888 van Gogh realized a long-cherished plan to persuade Paul Gauguin (1848–1903), whose acquaintance he had made in Paris, to come to Arles, stay in the Yellow House, and help found a Studio of the South. Gauguin had been working in Brittany with Émile Bernard (1868–1941) and several other Parisian painters, and van Gogh had kept in close contact with this group through his correspondence with Bernard and by exchanges of work. He attempted to extend this system of exchanging information by encouraging Gauguin and Bernard to paint portraits of each other to send to him; he would paint a self-portrait for them. In the end Gauguin and Bernard did the same and sent him self-portraits. All the paintings in this project had the status of an artistic manifesto. Gauguin’s made a literary reference by incorporating the title of Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables (1862) and suggesting Gauguin’s identification with its hero, Jean Valjean.

In early December 1888 van Gogh began a pair of pendant paintings of chairs, Gauguin’s and his own. These pictures are not just great still lifes, however much the iconography is reminiscent of the allegorical use of motifs in seventeenth-century Dutch still life. The flame of a candle, for instance, is a commonplace in these, symbolizing light and life. But these paintings are also oblique portraits. On Gauguin’s chair van Gogh has placed two books, recognizable from the color of their covers as contemporary French novels. On his own chair he has placed a pipe and a tobacco pouch, and in the background there are sprouting onions. Gauguin’s Chair is a night scene; his own, a daylight scene. There is a further level of connotation in this pair of paintings.

In 1883 van Gogh told his brother of a story he had read about the English novelist Charles Dickens (1812–70) and the illustrator Luke Fildes (1843–1927). When Dickens died, Fildes made a drawing that was reproduced in The Graphic, an illustrated periodical the engravings in which van Gogh collected. The drawing showed Dickens’ workroom and now empty chair. Van Gogh explained to his brother what this image signified to him: he saw it as a symbol of the loss, through death, of the great pioneers of literature and graphic illustration. Moreover, these men— especially the illustrators, who had created images to accompany and illustrate modern literature—had, so van Gogh believed, worked in a collaborative and communal spirit. Their artistic community and shared endeavors provided him with a model for his own dream of a new co-operative society of artists based on the Studio of the South, which had been initiated by Gauguin’s arrival in Arles.

STILL LIFE WITH BLUE ENAMEL COFFEEPOT, EARTHENWARE, AND FRUIT, 1888

[image error]

In his Dutch years, van Gogh had employed a tonal palette typical of the Barbizon painters and some of The Hague School artists. But in the years 1884 and 1885 he encountered a new theory of color in the books and articles he was reading about the French painter Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863). From these texts he derived the thesis that one of the distinguishing features and great discoveries of recent art that made it “modern” was the use of complementary and contrasting colors in place of tonality and chiaroscuro. The basic message of his reading was that each primary color—red, blue, yellow—has a complementary color composed of a mixture of the other two. The complement of red is green; of blue, orange; of yellow, violet. Shadows cast by an object should include a complementary color of the object. Complementaries are also used to heighten and intensify the brilliance of color. In his ambition to be modern, van Gogh adopted these theories, but without a sophisticated understanding of them or a sound technical foundation as a painter. He applied them crudely and programmatically, though often with unexpectedly powerful and original effects.

During the spring and summer of 1888 he corresponded regularly with Émile Bernard, giving his friend reports on work in progress and describing his color experiments such as this still life. The complementary pairs of blue and orange, yellow and violet, can be easily recognized in this painting, and from the color notes added to a sketch of it, included in a letter to Bernard, it is clear that the red and green pair was also employed. The background, which in reproduction appears yellow, was in fact a greenish tone. Around the picture, van Gogh has painted a red border, which serves to heighten and emphasize that green. The practice of painting a border of complementary color on to the canvas was initiated by Seurat, who also employed modern color theory.

THE SOWER, 1888

[image error]

Van Gogh has painted an autumnal scene of sowing. The motif of the peasant sowing had fascinated him since his earliest months as an artist. In 1880 and 1881 he had made many copies of an etching he owned after one of the most famous paintings of a sower by Jean-François Millet (1814–75), as well as composing his own drawings of the theme. He returned to the subject in June 1888, when he painted a landscape with a small figure of a sower in a field, dominated by a huge sun. In letters written in June he referred directly to Millet’s Sower, but he complained that it lacked color. It was one of van Gogh’s aims to correct this, in a sense to update the subject Millet had made so famous and which was for van Gogh so resonant, by repainting the motif using modern color theory.

The canvas was planned in the yellows and violets, though it did not finally conform to that scheme. In the autumn he resumed The Sower, making two paintings, of which this one is a smaller and probably later version. He has used violet and yellow. The appeal of the sower motif for van Gogh was complex. It signified Millet, and van Gogh’s allegiance to what he had stood for—rural scenes in modern art; it signified the seasons and cycles of life and work. But it also referred to the Bible, especially the parable, a particular way of using a commonplace story to convey allegorical meaning. Finally, it evoked modern literature, for instance Émile Zola’s recent novel La Terre (1888), which is structured round the cycles of sowing and harvesting. In July 1889 van Gogh painted the complement to his sower, The Reaper, also in violet and yellow tones.

QUAY WITH MEN UNLOADING SAND BARGES, 1888

[image error]

The town of Arles is on the Rhône, and that busy waterway appears in a number of van Gogh’s works. He painted the quayside with stevedores at work as well as more panoramic views of the river as it sweeps its way through the town. But in such works, there is something stylized and remote about his treatment, as if it was difficult to come to terms with this aspect of Arles. There is a quality of ambivalence reminiscent of Monet’s evasive treatment of signs of modern labor and industry on the banks of the Seine near Argenteuil.

The painting is curious. The barges and their workmen are solidly and attentively painted, but the setting is minimal and unfinished. Nothing indicates exactly where this is all taking place. A small stretch of quayside suddenly gives way to a sketchy riverbank, a beach even. Beside the barges a man in a rowing boat is fishing, but his relation in space and scale to the barges is not clear. Van Gogh sent the painting to his friend and fellow artist Émile Bernard. In the accompanying letter, van Gogh admitted that the painting was only an attempt at a picture, and he stressed that although it was painted directly from life, it was not in the least “impressionist. ” Perhaps van Gogh was intending to take on the older Impressionists such as Monet on their own territory—using their subject matter—and to transform the scene by a more solid handling and greater solidity of form. But apart from the foreground this has hardly been accomplished.

VIEW OF ARLES WITH ORCHARDS, 1889

[image error]

In April 1889, shortly before he left Arles, van Gogh painted this view of the town, seen over the blossoming orchards and gardens and through a screen of tall trees. This image of the town differs from those he produced in the early months of his stay. Neither the agricultural environs of wheat fields nor the industrial landmarks of gas tanks and railway lines are depicted. Instead, we see an old, medieval Arles, surrounded by its cultivated and fertile gardens.

The sense of enclosure and fruitfulness, dreaminess even, has parallels in the illustrations of the medieval devotional books of hours, such as the Très Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry. Van Gogh selected this painting, which he titled Orchards in Bloom (Arles), for exhibition with the Belgian vanguard group Les XX in Brussels in 1890. He exhibited three times with the Parisian Indépendants: in 1888 he showed two paintings, two in 1889, and ten in 1890. To Brussels he sent four pictures: two canvases of sunflowers, a field of wheat at sunrise, and The Red Vineyard, which was bought by the Belgian artist Anna Boch (1848–1936). To accompany the exhibition the organ of Les XX, the magazine L’Art Moderne, published extracts from the lengthy and enthusiastic essay on van Gogh by Albert Aurier (1865–92), first published in 1890 in the Mercure de France newspaper.

LA BERCEUSE LULLABY: MADAME AUGUSTINE ROULIN ROCKING A CRADLE, 1889

The portrait of the postman’s wife, recently delivered of her third child, was planned in late 1888 but only completed, after some interruptions, in early 1889. The conception of the painting, originally one of a series of family portraits, changed as a result of Gauguin’s visit in the autumn of 1888. In it he examined an alternative strategy for infusing a portrait with complex meanings. He gave the portrait a title, La Berceuse, which can mean both the woman who rocks the cradle and the lullaby she would sing beside it. Madame Roulin is represented primarily as the mother; she holds a cradle rope between her hands. Van Gogh supplemented this reading of the work in his letters by mentioning a Pierre Loti novel, Pêcheur d’Islande (An Iceland Fisherman, 1886), in which the author described the comfort and remembrances of home brought to isolated Breton fishermen by the crude old faience Madonna that stood in the cabin of their fishing boat.

La Berceuse was a significant work for van Gogh. He painted five versions of it, one of which was given to the sitter. He offered versions to Gauguin and Bernard and suggested a special setting for the painting, flanked by twin canvases of sunflowers whose brilliant yellow warmth was to underscore the feeling of gratitude that the painting was intended to convey. However, when he later turned his back on Gauguin and Bernard and the ideas that they had encouraged him to pursue, van Gogh also rejected this portrait.

PORTRAIT OF SUPERINTENDENT TRABUC IN SAINT PAUL’S HOSPITAL, 1889

Van Gogh was able to paint some portraits during his stay in the hospital at Saint-Rémy. The hospital attendant and his wife both sat for him, which is convincing evidence of his epileptic rather than psychotic condition. Who would leave his wife alone with a madman? The couple provided van Gogh with another opportunity to paint a pendant pair of marital portraits. Of Madame Trabuc’s portrait, van Gogh wrote that he had painted her as a faded, withered woman, like a dusty blade of grass. The color scheme was pink and black. The attendant himself is portrayed with considerable force and presence in this bold and monumental portrait. The figure is placed frontally, set solidly in space against a background of delicately textured brushwork. The face is carefully painted with a different pattern of brushstrokes, which describe the contours of the forehead and skull and record all the cavities and slackness of the old man’s aging skin. The palette is softened and harmonious. As a portrait, it is one of Van Gogh’s most masterful, technically accomplished and controlled. He described the sitter to his brother, delighting in the fact that he had “something military in his small, quick black eyes.”

ENCLOSED WHEAT FIELD WITH RISING SUN, 1889

[image error]

Van Gogh often painted this view from his hospital window at Saint-Rémy, using the window itself as a sort of perspective frame. He had tried to master the laws of correct perspective by reading textbooks on the subject, and in The Hague he had had a perspective frame made to help him in achieving it. The device is merely an empty frame, across which a grid of strings is drawn. This grid is also drawn on to the canvas or page. The artist looks at the motif through the frame, siting the scene and its objects in relation to the strings and then drawing or painting them in a corresponding position on the squared-up page or canvas. The point at which the strings cross provides the vanishing point, an imaginary point of distance which should match, in a mirror-like fashion, the viewpoint of the spectator. By this means a three-dimensional scene is transferred to a two-dimensional plane, and the space, perceived from this artificial, single viewpoint, is organized to appear logical and coherent, a kind of window on the world.

However, if, as van Gogh was given to doing, the artist deviates from the single viewpoint, looking above, below, or to the sides of the perspective frame and thus incorporating many viewpoints, the effect can be quite disarming, as is the case in this painting. The foreground and background do not match. The foreground, painted as if the grass and poppies are immediately beneath our feet, seems to tilt and slide forwards and downwards, thwarting the intended planar recession to the infinitely more distant background. The deviations from traditional geometric systems for representing space, created by Van Gogh’s unsystematic use of these systems, serve, however, to produce an effect of dynamic space and immediacy.

ROAD WITH CYPRESS AND STAR (COUNTRY ROAD IN PROVENCE BY NIGHT), 1890

[image error]    Why was van Gogh investigating the roots of his practice during the time he spent at Saint Rémy? This painting provides some clues. After leaving Holland and moving to France, he had attempted to situate himself in relation to such Parisian painters as Bernard and Gauguin. He had corresponded and exchanged work with the former and, in a sense, studied with the latter in late 1888. He felt that they all three shared a dissatisfaction with Impressionism and its successors and a common purpose in creating what he called “la peinture consolante”—painting of consolation.

In June 1889 van Gogh painted a picture he called Starry Sky (now known as The Starry Night), an imaginative composition not painted from nature or the motif but composed from various sites and scenes of Brabant and Provence. He offered it to Bernard and Gauguin as his demonstration of a new form of religious painting. Both ignored the picture and thus overlooked van Gogh’s most ambitious painting in his French period, which had been conceived with reference to their joint concerns. Van Gogh responded to this cruel blow by angrily rejecting their work and the directions they had encouraged him to take. In June 1890, in a rare letter to Gauguin, he mentioned Road with Cypress and Star. He called it a “last attempt” at a star painting. It shares many features and motifs with the disregarded Starry Sky—a crescent moon, stars in the sky, Brabant cottages with lighted windows, a tall, solitary cypress. But there is no church; the theme has been “secularized.” It is just a landscape with cottages, trees, wheat fields and workers. It signifies a decisive retrenchment and a rejection of his flirtation with the Paris vanguard.

Author Victor Ghoshe is a Social Researcher & Painter

who has been researching on – ‘The Role of Art & Aesthetics in Social Well-being’

Credit – Content Reference : artspace.com

Secrets of Van Gogh: Lesser-Known Masterpieces of The Painter and The Stories Behind them

Featured Image:

Vincent Van Gogh’s Still Life with Blue Enamel Coffeepot, Earthenware and Fruit, 1888

We have all heard tell of the ear, the mental instability, seen then snapped our annoyingly necessary selfies with Starry Night, but to better understand Vincent van Gogh is to push past the surface mythos and delve into a wider understanding of his art and personal history. 

Standing in front of the ‘Starry Night’ at the Ontario Art Gallery in November 2016, I lost the track of time. I was attending this well-Curated ‘Mystic Painting Show’ of Van Gogh, Monet and other American and Canadian masters and for the first time in my life I felt what numbless was and what a ‘moment of selflessness’ was.

Well this is a story of Van Gogh’s lesser known works. because that’s what I have learnt through my years – if you want to know the person know him through his smaller works, day to day chores…..the way he/she walks, the way he/she talks…..and expresses gratitude or wrath. Here’s some of the insights that I have discovered through the master’s lesser known works.

The great Dutch master of modernity lived a famously tortured life (thanks to a series of letters between himself and his art-dealer brother, Theo, a substantial personal history remains). He sought truth and reason through the combined means of religion and visual art and ended his short but brilliant existence in 1890, after his two most prolific years. He left us, thankfully, an oeuvre of paintings which inarguably progressed the direction and vision of western art. Lets take a minute to investigate 10 lesser-known masterpieces found immaculately reproduced in Phaidon’s monograph, Van Gogh.

PÈRE TANGUY, 1887

[image error]   The sitter in this portrait was the color merchant Julien Tanguy, a Breton peasant who had settled in Paris and ran a small paint shop in the Rue Clauzel, much frequented by vanguard artists. His shop became a kind of gallery of their paintings, for Tanguy would take paintings on deposit as credit for the materials he supplied. Van Gogh painted two portraits of “Père” Tanguy in the autumn and early winter of 1887, both against a background composed of the Japanese color woodcuts that he had begun to collect, first in Antwerp and then more avidly in Paris. Tanguy is placed massively in the center of the canvas, facing the spectator. But the Paris merchant is presented not against an urban or even French setting, but in an imaginary context composed of Japanese seasonal scenes and costumed figures.

Although this choice of background indicates van Gogh’s evident preoccupation with Japanese prints—he also made individual copies of selected print at this date—the painting does not indicate any profound influence of Japanese graphic styles or perspectival devices upon his work. But it is important to note that the motifs represented in the prints anticipate those that van Gogh would shortly resume when he left Paris and moved once again into a more rural setting—seasonal landscapes and portraits of regional types in costume.

GAUGUIN ’S CHAIR,  1888

[image error]   In October 1888 van Gogh realized a long-cherished plan to persuade Paul Gauguin (1848–1903), whose acquaintance he had made in Paris, to come to Arles, stay in the Yellow House, and help found a Studio of the South. Gauguin had been working in Brittany with Émile Bernard (1868–1941) and several other Parisian painters, and van Gogh had kept in close contact with this group through his correspondence with Bernard and by exchanges of work. He attempted to extend this system of exchanging information by encouraging Gauguin and Bernard to paint portraits of each other to send to him; he would paint a self-portrait for them. In the end Gauguin and Bernard did the same and sent him self-portraits. All the paintings in this project had the status of an artistic manifesto. Gauguin’s made a literary reference by incorporating the title of Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables (1862) and suggesting Gauguin’s identification with its hero, Jean Valjean.

In early December 1888 van Gogh began a pair of pendant paintings of chairs, Gauguin’s and his own. These pictures are not just great still lifes, however much the iconography is reminiscent of the allegorical use of motifs in seventeenth-century Dutch still life. The flame of a candle, for instance, is a commonplace in these, symbolizing light and life. But these paintings are also oblique portraits. On Gauguin’s chair van Gogh has placed two books, recognizable from the color of their covers as contemporary French novels. On his own chair he has placed a pipe and a tobacco pouch, and in the background there are sprouting onions. Gauguin’s Chair is a night scene; his own, a daylight scene. There is a further level of connotation in this pair of paintings.

In 1883 van Gogh told his brother of a story he had read about the English novelist Charles Dickens (1812–70) and the illustrator Luke Fildes (1843–1927). When Dickens died, Fildes made a drawing that was reproduced in The Graphic, an illustrated periodical the engravings in which van Gogh collected. The drawing showed Dickens’ workroom and now empty chair. Van Gogh explained to his brother what this image signified to him: he saw it as a symbol of the loss, through death, of the great pioneers of literature and graphic illustration. Moreover, these men— especially the illustrators, who had created images to accompany and illustrate modern literature—had, so van Gogh believed, worked in a collaborative and communal spirit. Their artistic community and shared endeavors provided him with a model for his own dream of a new co-operative society of artists based on the Studio of the South, which had been initiated by Gauguin’s arrival in Arles.

STILL LIFE WITH BLUE ENAMEL COFFEEPOT, EARTHENWARE, AND FRUIT, 1888

[image error]

In his Dutch years, van Gogh had employed a tonal palette typical of the Barbizon painters and some of The Hague School artists. But in the years 1884 and 1885 he encountered a new theory of color in the books and articles he was reading about the French painter Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863). From these texts he derived the thesis that one of the distinguishing features and great discoveries of recent art that made it “modern” was the use of complementary and contrasting colors in place of tonality and chiaroscuro. The basic message of his reading was that each primary color—red, blue, yellow—has a complementary color composed of a mixture of the other two. The complement of red is green; of blue, orange; of yellow, violet. Shadows cast by an object should include a complementary color of the object. Complementaries are also used to heighten and intensify the brilliance of color. In his ambition to be modern, van Gogh adopted these theories, but without a sophisticated understanding of them or a sound technical foundation as a painter. He applied them crudely and programmatically, though often with unexpectedly powerful and original effects.

During the spring and summer of 1888 he corresponded regularly with Émile Bernard, giving his friend reports on work in progress and describing his color experiments such as this still life. The complementary pairs of blue and orange, yellow and violet, can be easily recognized in this painting, and from the color notes added to a sketch of it, included in a letter to Bernard, it is clear that the red and green pair was also employed. The background, which in reproduction appears yellow, was in fact a greenish tone. Around the picture, van Gogh has painted a red border, which serves to heighten and emphasize that green. The practice of painting a border of complementary color on to the canvas was initiated by Seurat, who also employed modern color theory.

THE SOWER, 1888

[image error]

Van Gogh has painted an autumnal scene of sowing. The motif of the peasant sowing had fascinated him since his earliest months as an artist. In 1880 and 1881 he had made many copies of an etching he owned after one of the most famous paintings of a sower by Jean-François Millet (1814–75), as well as composing his own drawings of the theme. He returned to the subject in June 1888, when he painted a landscape with a small figure of a sower in a field, dominated by a huge sun. In letters written in June he referred directly to Millet’s Sower, but he complained that it lacked color. It was one of van Gogh’s aims to correct this, in a sense to update the subject Millet had made so famous and which was for van Gogh so resonant, by repainting the motif using modern color theory.

The canvas was planned in the yellows and violets, though it did not finally conform to that scheme. In the autumn he resumed The Sower, making two paintings, of which this one is a smaller and probably later version. He has used violet and yellow. The appeal of the sower motif for van Gogh was complex. It signified Millet, and van Gogh’s allegiance to what he had stood for—rural scenes in modern art; it signified the seasons and cycles of life and work. But it also referred to the Bible, especially the parable, a particular way of using a commonplace story to convey allegorical meaning. Finally, it evoked modern literature, for instance Émile Zola’s recent novel La Terre (1888), which is structured round the cycles of sowing and harvesting. In July 1889 van Gogh painted the complement to his sower, The Reaper, also in violet and yellow tones.

QUAY WITH MEN UNLOADING SAND BARGES, 1888

[image error]

The town of Arles is on the Rhône, and that busy waterway appears in a number of van Gogh’s works. He painted the quayside with stevedores at work as well as more panoramic views of the river as it sweeps its way through the town. But in such works, there is something stylized and remote about his treatment, as if it was difficult to come to terms with this aspect of Arles. There is a quality of ambivalence reminiscent of Monet’s evasive treatment of signs of modern labor and industry on the banks of the Seine near Argenteuil.

The painting is curious. The barges and their workmen are solidly and attentively painted, but the setting is minimal and unfinished. Nothing indicates exactly where this is all taking place. A small stretch of quayside suddenly gives way to a sketchy riverbank, a beach even. Beside the barges a man in a rowing boat is fishing, but his relation in space and scale to the barges is not clear. Van Gogh sent the painting to his friend and fellow artist Émile Bernard. In the accompanying letter, van Gogh admitted that the painting was only an attempt at a picture, and he stressed that although it was painted directly from life, it was not in the least “impressionist. ” Perhaps van Gogh was intending to take on the older Impressionists such as Monet on their own territory—using their subject matter—and to transform the scene by a more solid handling and greater solidity of form. But apart from the foreground this has hardly been accomplished.

VIEW OF ARLES WITH ORCHARDS, 1889

[image error]

In April 1889, shortly before he left Arles, van Gogh painted this view of the town, seen over the blossoming orchards and gardens and through a screen of tall trees. This image of the town differs from those he produced in the early months of his stay. Neither the agricultural environs of wheat fields nor the industrial landmarks of gas tanks and railway lines are depicted. Instead, we see an old, medieval Arles, surrounded by its cultivated and fertile gardens.

The sense of enclosure and fruitfulness, dreaminess even, has parallels in the illustrations of the medieval devotional books of hours, such as the Très Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry. Van Gogh selected this painting, which he titled Orchards in Bloom (Arles), for exhibition with the Belgian vanguard group Les XX in Brussels in 1890. He exhibited three times with the Parisian Indépendants: in 1888 he showed two paintings, two in 1889, and ten in 1890. To Brussels he sent four pictures: two canvases of sunflowers, a field of wheat at sunrise, and The Red Vineyard, which was bought by the Belgian artist Anna Boch (1848–1936). To accompany the exhibition the organ of Les XX, the magazine L’Art Moderne, published extracts from the lengthy and enthusiastic essay on van Gogh by Albert Aurier (1865–92), first published in 1890 in the Mercure de France newspaper.

LA BERCEUSE LULLABY: MADAME AUGUSTINE ROULIN ROCKING A CRADLE, 1889

The portrait of the postman’s wife, recently delivered of her third child, was planned in late 1888 but only completed, after some interruptions, in early 1889. The conception of the painting, originally one of a series of family portraits, changed as a result of Gauguin’s visit in the autumn of 1888. In it he examined an alternative strategy for infusing a portrait with complex meanings. He gave the portrait a title, La Berceuse, which can mean both the woman who rocks the cradle and the lullaby she would sing beside it. Madame Roulin is represented primarily as the mother; she holds a cradle rope between her hands. Van Gogh supplemented this reading of the work in his letters by mentioning a Pierre Loti novel, Pêcheur d’Islande (An Iceland Fisherman, 1886), in which the author described the comfort and remembrances of home brought to isolated Breton fishermen by the crude old faience Madonna that stood in the cabin of their fishing boat.

La Berceuse was a significant work for van Gogh. He painted five versions of it, one of which was given to the sitter. He offered versions to Gauguin and Bernard and suggested a special setting for the painting, flanked by twin canvases of sunflowers whose brilliant yellow warmth was to underscore the feeling of gratitude that the painting was intended to convey. However, when he later turned his back on Gauguin and Bernard and the ideas that they had encouraged him to pursue, van Gogh also rejected this portrait.

PORTRAIT OF SUPERINTENDENT TRABUC IN SAINT PAUL’S HOSPITAL, 1889

Van Gogh was able to paint some portraits during his stay in the hospital at Saint-Rémy. The hospital attendant and his wife both sat for him, which is convincing evidence of his epileptic rather than psychotic condition. Who would leave his wife alone with a madman? The couple provided van Gogh with another opportunity to paint a pendant pair of marital portraits. Of Madame Trabuc’s portrait, van Gogh wrote that he had painted her as a faded, withered woman, like a dusty blade of grass. The color scheme was pink and black. The attendant himself is portrayed with considerable force and presence in this bold and monumental portrait. The figure is placed frontally, set solidly in space against a background of delicately textured brushwork. The face is carefully painted with a different pattern of brushstrokes, which describe the contours of the forehead and skull and record all the cavities and slackness of the old man’s aging skin. The palette is softened and harmonious. As a portrait, it is one of Van Gogh’s most masterful, technically accomplished and controlled. He described the sitter to his brother, delighting in the fact that he had “something military in his small, quick black eyes.”

ENCLOSED WHEAT FIELD WITH RISING SUN, 1889

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Van Gogh often painted this view from his hospital window at Saint-Rémy, using the window itself as a sort of perspective frame. He had tried to master the laws of correct perspective by reading textbooks on the subject, and in The Hague he had had a perspective frame made to help him in achieving it. The device is merely an empty frame, across which a grid of strings is drawn. This grid is also drawn on to the canvas or page. The artist looks at the motif through the frame, siting the scene and its objects in relation to the strings and then drawing or painting them in a corresponding position on the squared-up page or canvas. The point at which the strings cross provides the vanishing point, an imaginary point of distance which should match, in a mirror-like fashion, the viewpoint of the spectator. By this means a three-dimensional scene is transferred to a two-dimensional plane, and the space, perceived from this artificial, single viewpoint, is organized to appear logical and coherent, a kind of window on the world.

However, if, as van Gogh was given to doing, the artist deviates from the single viewpoint, looking above, below, or to the sides of the perspective frame and thus incorporating many viewpoints, the effect can be quite disarming, as is the case in this painting. The foreground and background do not match. The foreground, painted as if the grass and poppies are immediately beneath our feet, seems to tilt and slide forwards and downwards, thwarting the intended planar recession to the infinitely more distant background. The deviations from traditional geometric systems for representing space, created by Van Gogh’s unsystematic use of these systems, serve, however, to produce an effect of dynamic space and immediacy.

ROAD WITH CYPRESS AND STAR (COUNTRY ROAD IN PROVENCE BY NIGHT), 1890

[image error]    Why was van Gogh investigating the roots of his practice during the time he spent at Saint Rémy? This painting provides some clues. After leaving Holland and moving to France, he had attempted to situate himself in relation to such Parisian painters as Bernard and Gauguin. He had corresponded and exchanged work with the former and, in a sense, studied with the latter in late 1888. He felt that they all three shared a dissatisfaction with Impressionism and its successors and a common purpose in creating what he called “la peinture consolante”—painting of consolation.

In June 1889 van Gogh painted a picture he called Starry Sky (now known as The Starry Night), an imaginative composition not painted from nature or the motif but composed from various sites and scenes of Brabant and Provence. He offered it to Bernard and Gauguin as his demonstration of a new form of religious painting. Both ignored the picture and thus overlooked van Gogh’s most ambitious painting in his French period, which had been conceived with reference to their joint concerns. Van Gogh responded to this cruel blow by angrily rejecting their work and the directions they had encouraged him to take. In June 1890, in a rare letter to Gauguin, he mentioned Road with Cypress and Star. He called it a “last attempt” at a star painting. It shares many features and motifs with the disregarded Starry Sky—a crescent moon, stars in the sky, Brabant cottages with lighted windows, a tall, solitary cypress. But there is no church; the theme has been “secularized.” It is just a landscape with cottages, trees, wheat fields and workers. It signifies a decisive retrenchment and a rejection of his flirtation with the Paris vanguard.

Author Victor Ghoshe

is a Social Researcher & Painter who has been researching on –

‘The role of Art & aesthetics in Social well-being’

My close encounters with ‘Design Thinking’

During my short stint (a few months institutional training) at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad in 1996-97 my thirst for understanding the science behind ‘Design Development’ became quite unquenchable. Through the innumerable hours spent in NID’s state-of-the-art library, I had

Through the innumerable hours spent in NID’s state-of-the-art library, I had learnt that the ‘Concept of design’ as a way of making sense of things has recently been the subject of many studies (starting with the Krippendorff study – 1989).

Those days ‘Design Thinking’ was also immerging as a topic of study, but that would still take time and would only be developed into a subject in 2008 (Brown 2008; Brown 2009).

But, I didn’t have time.

A seeker with a hungry young soul – I blindly fall in love with another new subject named ‘Communication Design’. I had to delve into the endless ocean of – strategic communication design to quench my thirst, to learn more and more and more.

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30 yrs later, today when I use Human-centered design (HCD) as one of my key methodology of Concept and Design development I still allow a healthy mix of my idea of ‘Design thinking’ and ‘Strategic communication design’ to develop solutions which are relevant to human perspectives and to the society.

I now develop a design and management framework that further develops solutions to problems by involving the human perspective in all steps of the problem-solving process. In my methodology – Human involvement typically takes place in observing the problem within context, brainstorming, conceptualizing, developing, and implementing the solution.

Here’s a Billboard design prototype I had developed considering the ‘Human perspective’ of design development along with the theories of ‘strategic communication’ in 1999 to launch the Drive in McD on Mathura Road.

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The creative idea was – a subtle change in flow or in the arrangement of the garlands subtly making the McD Identity and hitting the human subconscious. The flowers represent the festivity of the inauguration as well as the divinity of the destination – Mathura.

There were around 25 large billboards leading to the restaurant from both ways with this kind of floral arrangements (real flowers of course).

This idea brought over 7 awards for the agency. : )

Victor Ghoshe

Things will change….for better !!!

Things are not good around. People are starving; dying everywhere in the country…. every single day!

The ones who have bread on the table, are dying under other kinds of pressures…..!!!

Just wanted to express that I am not happy….when there is blood & death everywhere…..

I can’t be happy and keep writing happy stories.

Here’s my song. My way to say, I am not happy…..! But I still HOPE things will CHANGE…

 

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The wonder called – BBC Blue Room

The world is your oyster… they say as a metaphor. But that’s exactly what I have recently felt like when I stood inside the next generation BBC Blue Room in the White City building, London.

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Emersed in a virtual world I painted in the air all around myself in the room full of hi-tech machinery and screens. I saw digital characters inside 3D screens responding to my pokes, I almost had interacted with cartoon characters inside a virtual world for several minutes and truly speaking I had an ‘out of the world’ experience doing all of these things through the day. My day in the BBC Blue Room.

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Well, it is in the rapidly changing world of digital technology. Which either means the BBC’s mission to inform, entertain and educate is harder than ever or has never been more exciting.

The BBC Blue Room in the White City office was opened some nine years ago as a concept – creating a space combining both the latest consumer technology and digital know-how to ensure senior level BBC staff could see, use and learn about the latest technologies that will fundamentally influence the content BBC makes, and how it is consumed by the audiences.

I have come to know that recently BBC has launched the next generation of BBC Blue Room in Salford, which is not only a specialist facility that will showcase consumer and broadcast technology, but will allow our nearly 3,000 strong staff to get to grips with new kit and try out their ideas on platforms before it arrives on the high street – which is crucial when what BBC is seeking in the rapidly changing digital world is the most inspiring, informative, entertaining and educational content it can create.

[image error]Imagine a world where the wallpaper in your living room changes to match the background of the program you’re watching on TV – what does it do to your viewing experience, what content does it work with, and what not? How might we use it to change your viewing experience? Or what about ultra-HD – how do we have to change the way we make programs to make the most of this new format? Some of these are questions about what we make, others about how we make it… but all are types of things we’ll be using the Blue Room to provide insight and answers.

In practice this means trying out new ideas, on new kit, in new ways – putting ourselves in the shoes of our audiences before they do, which is why the Blue Room will include the latest cameras and ultra-HD displays, as well as many different platforms on which content can be viewed such as Twitch, Vine, and BBC iPlayer, to name but a few.

But it’s not just for BBC program-makers and developers – it’s about the future, and who better to be sharing it with than the people who will be coming up with new BBC programme and content ideas in the future – like the 6 year old kids who were recently hailed as more tech-savy than 45 year adults. This is why we will open up the BBC’s second Blue Room to local schools across the Northwest to have their own encounter with next-generation consumer technology, to open their eyes, inspire them, inform them, educate them and maybe just entertain them. How important are games consoles such as Xbox One and Playstation 4 which blur the lines between gaming, social interaction and consuming content going to be? What will they make of new virtual reality technologies from Oculus Rift or wearable technology such as Google Glass?

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I have discovered BBC’s aim is to show people – how interesting is the oyster around them and how brilliantly it can change their world. It’s never been more exciting to create and share content – you just need a chance to lean into the future – which is exactly why BBC has created the ‘BBC Blue Room’.

Author of this article – Victor Ghoshe

is a Sr Adviser with BBC India, who has recently visited the BBC Blue Room in London

and expressed his personal views in this article.

 

Why do we need an ‘Experience Budget’ before a ‘Possession Budget’

Do you think money makes you happy?

Yes and no. It’s not a magic wand for instant happiness, but it can provide you with the means to create that happiness.

Yes and no. It’s not a magic wand for instant happiness, but it can provide you with the means to create that happiness.

Unfortunately, most people use their financial gains to purchase items or objects. While these do bring about happiness, it is generally short-lived and there is always the next “thing” that needs to be purchased in order to feed the happiness of object buying.

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On the other hand, when money goes towards experiences, the lasting effect is lifelong. Yet many people are very hesitant to spend money on a big trip or a vacation of some sort. There is usually no physical object in the experience equation you get to take home, and there is a fair share of the unknown on what will happen and if you really will get your money’s worth. But in the end, the experience you gain makes the expenditure worth it and usually will exceed expectations.

Here’s are why experiences never fail.

Nature Can Be The Best Experience

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We don’t even need a lot of money for this experience.

Nature is all around us and the simple act of sitting lakeside, strolling through the woods, or going to a nearby park can be much more fulfilling than spending money by going shopping.

Trips Shall Be Talked About For Years To Come

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Our experiences will indeed last forever. Think about your latest big purchases. Was it a computer? A smart phone? A flatscreen? These are thrill of the moment objects, yet two years down the road they will likely need replacing with the next best thing. So you spend all that money on a form of happiness that has an expiration date. The experience gained from travels and trips never expire and will last your whole life. Pretty cool investment actually.

Money Isn’t Such A Burden When You Are Happy

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Our experiences from travel are like a go-to source for instant happiness. Just thinking back on it makes you happy and creates excitement for new experiences to come. That same form of happiness doesn’t come with objects you buy.

Experiences Are Meaningful To Us

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In the constant struggle for money, it’s easy to forget about meaning. What is really meaningful in life? Is a new car more meaningful than traveling? True meaning in life is all about experiences, not new cars. Think about what attracts you to that shiny hunk of steel. Usually, it has something to do with perception and how cooler you will look inside it. Very superficial compared to having amazing experiences which are so meaningful that you will grow as an individual on the inside, not just look cool on the outside.

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Let us consider creating new experiences when money spending, rather than attempting to create gratification through object buying. In the end, it will create a more fulfilling existence, rich with memories that will last forever.

 

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VICTOR GHOSHE

is a Development thinker and a social branding adviser.

Ghoshe is also a bestselling author of the 2016 thriller – The Job Charnock Riddle

 

 

Write to the 25 year old you

A friend of mine who knows me from my childhood recently requested me to write a letter to the 16, 25 and 40year old versions of myself as he thought it would be very interesting. As I looked back I found (like many of us) I was looking at three totally different people at three different times – so I decided to write three separate letters. Here’s my letter to the 25-year-old me.

Dear Victor,

I’m writing to you from 20 years in the future. You’re now 45-years-old, and while you’ve lived a happy and healthy life with no regrets, I have some advice for you.

First of all, congratulations on being the journeyman you always wanted to be.

at 25 you are a no one now. At least not a very good student with brilliant academic scores and I know you’re still trying to find your feet and work out the dos and don’ts of establishing an okay career. I also know 10 years later you will not be doing many of these things that you are doing right now, but I want to tell you to stick with all of it. Stick with all of it with your heart and soul which is your normal attitude towards things and people. Because all of these efforts will eventually make you what you will be at 45.

I know the time is not good, I know at times you are depressed but I also know you are teaching yourself to channelize the depression and the negative energy through your paintings and through your music. I want to tell you – never leave any of these two friends of yours. They are your true friends and will never leave you if you keep them in your heart as you’ve done till now.

I know about some of your dreams (because at 45 I have forgotten some – come on! I am getting old you should understand that), thus I can guarantee the best is yet to come; many of your dreams will come true. But I will not tell you which ones.

Because I simply don’t want to spoil the mystery and fantasy of the unknown, I can tell you there will be several wonderfully rewarding moments and several incredible people will become family, friends, students, mentors and walk with you in your future. And, yes, once again I mention – many of your wildest dreams will come true. But there are some clauses: you will have to keep walking; you will have to be a relentless and a keen observer of life; you will have to keep wondering about everything in this universe; you will have to be curious about life and its finer things; you will have to keep believing in yourself and you will have to work hard to make things happen.

The road ahead is bad with hell of a lot of bumps, chasms and forks. Your luck will leave you, friends will leave you, close people around will leave you, your confidence will leave you. YOU WILL FAIL and you will fail time and time again – there will be times where you want to give up and throw everything in.

Don’t.

Failing is ok though because failure is an inevitable part of every personal journey. But today at 45 I can tell, you will be able to pick yourself up, retrace your steps. You will be able to look at what went wrong and learn from your mistakes because you are a fighter today and you will remain one.

[image error]One of the paintings of Victor Ghoshe when he was 21

When you will find success you will find it only by turning challenges into opportunities. And you will find success you never realised you were capable of achieving.

Let your dreams guide your path. Keep the people you love and respect close to you. Follow the 3 ‘R’s – Respect self, respect people & the universe and respect your dreams. Don’t be afraid to delegate responsibilities. don’t be afraid to ask for help and never be afraid to say ‘Sorry’.

Don’t let the naysayers deter you. Do things your own way because when you shine one day you will shine because of the YOU in you. You will go places as the journeyman you are. Your ability to take risks and your incurable optimism will lead to great heights – both in work and in life.

[image error]Victor Ghoshe (25 years) on Sandak–phu, Himalayas (12000 ft). It is the highest point of the Singalila Ridge in Darjeeling district on the West Bengal-Nepal border.

As I sign off today I wish to share a quote with you from one of your idols – Albert Einstein, because today I know this will help you.

‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.’

Good luck

Victor

I, Me and That One Alien Language by Victor Ghoshe

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For a painter adopting a tribal art form; for a musician learning an indigenous instrument; for writer learning to write in a language other than his mother tongue or a school taught one – all of these are adventures.

Every language of this world has roots. Roots those bind them to some geographical areas. A language can migrate, it can go far. But usually it’s tied to a specific territory or a country.

Bengali (language) belongs mainly to Bengal (Eastern India) and Bangladesh, and I have been living in New Delhi for almost 18 years; a good 1400 kilometers away from Kolkata, Bengal – which was almost an other land. Where you have a Chittaranjan Park cluster of Bengali families but you somehow cannot connect with the stereo typical ‘Bengali’ spoken there. You do not readily encounter the finesse of the language and humour that easily comes along with the flow of it.

As a film enthusiast I always appreciated the group of Bengali people who almost had constructed the pillars and had built the empire of the Hindi Film Industry in Bombay – everything they did was in a language that was not their mother tongue.

On the other hand I also think of myself, out of Bengal for over 20 years and been missing the fine Bengali humour around.

My mother tongue, Bengali, was almost a strange language in Delhi. When you live in a place where your own language is considered strange, you can feel a continuous sense of estrangement. In offices people would ask you to not to speak in Bengali; some Senior Officer would even say – ‘in my office Bengali language is banned’. As if you speak Bengali only to conspire or to discuss a sinful secret.

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Lack of any correspondence to the environment made me sick; I was depressed in my initial years. The absence of conversations in the language that makes me – ‘me’, created a distance within my self. And I started believing that a language can migrate, it can go far – but its charm would be lost. As it is somehow tied to a specific region.

I remember through my initial days in Delhi, in absence of the kind of fine humour I have brought up with – I tried cracking jokes in the North Indian way and I had struggled for over a couple of years to crack a perfect north Indian joke that made people laugh. The content, the sudden twist, the peak, the free fall, the timing nothing was coming right.

Then one day I understood the problem was with me. The lack of respect in my mind for the language of the region I was living in. The false ego of coming from an intellectual land had stopped me to listen to the sounds, the nuances and the ornaments of the language sensibly.

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I changed the way of my thinking.

Today after spending almost eighteen years in Delhi I have over 30 songs under my belt which are written in Hindi – (most of which are used and engaged in different social programs of various international agencies), and one published and successful music album (now raising fund for a development program) in which I sang songs that tell the story of the land once I had labelled as a strange place and almost refused to live in.

These reactions don’t surprise me. A transformation, especially one that is deliberately sought, is often perceived as something disloyal, threatening. I am from a family where I saw my grandfather never shifted to trousers from dhoti even when all of his friends did. I am the son of a mother who would never change her lifestyle or the way she cooked even with strange vegetables and stranger ingredients. Even in New Delhi, she continued, as far as possible, to dress, cook, eat, think, live as if she had never left Kolkata. The refusal to change her habits and her attitudes was her strategy to resist the other culture.

I am somehow different and a little more liberal. While the refusal to change was my mother’s way to fight, the perseverance on transforming myself was mine. ‘There was a person busting with creative ideas, who left Calcutta in 1996. So for me it was about this person inside my mind who always wanted to learn new things – and how time had helped him evolve’.

It was neither a pre-conceived idea that I would start writing in Hindi – a language which I never studied, nor an accident. But it happened quite automatically when I started becoming a more observing and listening person with some respect for the language of the land.

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‘The Song for Rehman,’ the first song I wrote in Hindi, begins with a line that mentions a certain traffic signal of Delhi. This was a traffic signal that mattered in my life. The only signal which would decide whether I would be late in office or will arrive on time. The first physical thing I connected well with, in the city was this traffic signal – the one which gave me my first friend Rehman and eventually gave me my first successful song in Hindi. I had to write in Hindi because I wanted to tell a story of the city which speaks in Hindi; because I wanted to narrate my conversations with the city through my friend Rehman’s voice. And because I wanted to paint an empty canvas with colours that show the true spirit of the city.

Some people say that the process of metamorphosis is the only thing of life that never changes.  Some people say there is actually no process of metamorphosis in life – CHANGE itself is life.

I believe the journey of each one of us, the evolution of every nation, the change through every historical period—of this universe and all it contains—is a series of changes, sometimes low, sometimes high, like a wave, without which we would be static. The moments of transition, in which something changes its form or its philosophy, constitute the core of all of us. It can be Nirvana or it can be nothing but these are the moments that we automatically remember. They provide a framework to our existence. Almost all the rest is void.

I think that the power of art and aesthetics is the power to wake us up, strike us to our depths, change us. What are we searching for when we look at a painting, read a novel, see a film, and listen to a piece of music? We are searching, through a work of art, for something that alters us that we weren’t aware of before. We want to transform ourselves; just the way that one traffic signal had transformed me.

A total metamorphosis wasn’t possible in my case. I can write in Hindi, but I can’t become a Hindi writer. I can write my songs in Hindi but I possibly cannot become a Hindi lyricist. I had read about Fernando Pessoa, a writer who invented four versions of himself: four separate, distinct writers, thanks to which he was able to go beyond the confines of himself. Maybe what I’m doing, by means of Hindi, resembles his tactic. It’s not possible to become another writer, but it might be possible to become two or three.

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Oddly, I feel more protected when I write in Hindi, because I know my work has a pan-India audience now. It’s true that after a point it’s the language which possesses you not that you possess the language. But somehow with my Hindi speaking audience I’m freer as a song writer or as a writer who has no baggage of his own culture and its humongous weight on his shoulders. I am sleeker a person who can anytime slip into any another language without any hassle – without any extra baggage. Because now I know the secret key to slip oneself inside the skin of any language or any culture…… is nothing but a little respect for that language and that culture – which demands a sensible listening and a little bit of careful observation to pick up a few insights.

Victor Ghoshe

The author is a Senior Adviser with BBC India

and works for international development

Looking for a book to enjoy over the Christmas holidays? Here are some of my recent favorites

Books are friends for life – one should be able to pick a book from his/her collection and re-read at any given moment just like picking up the telephone and call-up an old friend for a chat.

I feel so empowered each time I finish reading a new book.

When I was young, there were few options to learn on my own. Some of my rich friends had sets of colorful Encyclopedias, which I borrowed and read through. But there were no Google, no online courses, no videos, no TED talks or podcasts to introduce me to new ideas and thinkers as we have today.

But then again, reading books has been my favorite way to learn about something new. I’ve been reading two books a month on average since I was in 5th standard. My Aunt sourced these books regularly from her 130 year old school library. Even today when my schedule is quite out of control, I carve out a lot of time for reading.

If you’re looking for a book to enjoy over these holidays, here are some of my favorites from 2016. Usually they cover a magic mix of topics—from ‘Lateral Thinking’ to ‘Boat Journeys’, from ‘Genetics to Upanishada and other ancient learning’, from ‘Astrophysics to Ancient Aliens’, from ‘Indigenous Knowledge to Yoga & Meditation’, from ‘Thrillers to Archaeological Research works’. But this year I have noticed they were simpler….. I think its the ‘age’. You cross forty and suddenly everything start changing.

Well coming back to the point, most of these books are very well written, and they all give me my ‘momentary vision moments’ with unexpected insights and pleasures.

The Sumerian Controversy – A special Report by Dr Heather Lynn

There are new excavations underway in ancient Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq). Join writer, researcher, and archaeologist, Dr. Heather Lynn, as she investigates who is behind the latest Sumerian discovery near the ancient city of Ur.

What is its connection to big oil, bankers, and elite families? Among many of the new artifacts, one stands out that has been quickly shipped off for analysis.

This report is the first part of a series of briefings designed to keep the public informed on this unfolding story. This book has left me with more questions, than answers, I now am engaged in the process of the investigation.

The author appeals if we work together, the truth can be brought to light.

The publisher says any profits from the sale of this publication go directly to support the Society for Truth in Archaeological Research (STAR).

A World Treasury of Folk Wisdom by Reynold Feldman & Cynthia-A-Voelke

I like this book as a collection of wonderful sayings from around the world. It contains over a hundred topics related to the human condition. Topics in the book cover the gamut from “Adversity” to “Vanity and Arrogance,” from “Caution and Care” to “Impossibility.” It is an incredible book in that it speaks to the universality of the human experience.

Outliers – The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

In this stunning book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of “outliers”–the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? Again and again…

His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

365 ways to change the world by Michael Norton

You want to make a difference in the world, but don’t know where to begin. Now you can. Here is just the guide to lots of exciting ways that are more personal and fun than merely writing a check. For every day of the year, 365 Ways to Change the World is packed with information and ideas that don’t take a lot of special skills to put into action, but will achieve something positive:

Observe a “Buy Nothing Day” Plant a “peace pole” Sew a panel for an AIDS memorial quilt Collect rainwater to water your plants. I am amazed as I turned each page of this book.

The suggestions cover twelve important areas in which you can influence change, including in your local community, as a consumer, making a cultural contribution, and addressing problems such as the environment, health, and human rights. You can go through the book day by day or use the index to flip to the issues that concern you most; to help you take action, a complementary website links straight to many of the sources listed in the book. Great to give as well as to keep, this is an inspiring, practical resource for making the world a better place – one day at a time.

Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski

From the master of literary reportage whose acclaimed books include Shah of Shahs, The Emperor, and The Shadow of the Sun, an intimate account of his first youthful forays beyond the Iron Curtain.

Just out of university in 1955, Kapuscinski told his editor that he’d like to go abroad. Dreaming no farther than Czechoslovakia, the young reporter found himself sent to India. Wide-eyed and captivated, he would discover in those days his life’s work—to understand and describe the world in its remotest reaches, in all its multiplicity. From the rituals of sunrise at Persepolis to the incongruity of Louis Armstrong performing before a stone-faced crowd in Khartoum, Kapuscinski gives us the non-Western world as he first saw it, through still-virginal Western eyes.

The companion on his travels: a volume of Herodotus, a gift from his first boss. Whether in China, Poland, Iran, or the Congo, it was the “father of history”—and, as Kapuscinski would realize, of globalism—who helped the young correspondent to make sense of events, to find the story where it did not obviously exist. It is this great forerunner’s spirit—both supremely worldly and innately Occidental—that would continue to whet Kapuscinski’s ravenous appetite for discovering the broader world and that has made him our own indispensable companion on any leg of that perpetual journey.

The Armada by Garrett Mattingly

Chronicling one of the most spectacular events of the sixteenth century, The Armada is the definitive story of the English fleet’s infamous defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. The esteemed and critically acclaimed historian Garrett Mattingly explores all dimensions of the naval campaign, which captured the attention of the European world and played a deciding role in the settlement of the New World. So skilfully constructed it reads like a novel,  The Armada is sure to appeal to the scholar and amateur historian alike.

I am sure my experience about some of these books will intrigue you to grab a copy and turn the pages with a cup of freshly brewed coffee. I hope they bring you some unexpected insights and pleasures too.

Victor Ghoshe

Sr Adviser, BBC, India