Sunflowers or Vase with Twelve Sunflowers – Vincent van Gogh // Sunflowers or Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers – Vincent van Gogh // There It Goes – Maisie Peters
I've been thinking about how yellow is the color of hope against the odds.
daffodils that always bloom first, when it's still cold
leaves that get brighter as winter encroaches
dandelions that you can't root out completely no matter how hard you try
Last winter was the loneliest I've ever been (and I've been lonely most of my life, so that's saying something). I took up running to stave off the depression, and one day I was surprised by a shock of daffodils growing by the road.
You never expect daffodils, do you? William Wordsworth wrote about a similar surprise:
As surprising as the first moment of happiness after months of depression.
In her essay about the color jonquil, Katy Kelleher writes about the myth of Vincent Van Gogh eating his yellow paints to stave off depression:
He didn't actually eat yellow. But he captured it, that feeling of realizing you have something to live for.
Every time I come across a Van Gogh painting I didn’t know existed, it feels like I just heard the birds sing and the sun shine for the first time all year. Like life is an origami, and I'd walked to the edge of the page and I was thinking I'd have to jump, but instead someone unfolded it and showed me that there is so much more to live and love.
You can just tell he loved the world, even though it hurt him so much. @headspace-hotel said it better:
She continues:
When I was fifteen our neighbor's house burned down. Did you know that when a house burns down, everyone gathers together to watch? You follow the smoke, and you watch from across the street as the physical proof of someone's existence goes up in flame.
On the way home, I saw a dandelion.
Survival is defiance in a world that wants you dead. And this defiance can be joyful, as John Darnielle said:
Yellow seems an appropriate color for dandelions. A bright color, violent as sunlight. Unapologetic.
This painting is called "The Garden of the Asylum", and was painted at the clinic in Saint-Rémy. Van Gogh spent a year there and was not permitted to venture outside.
It's getting colder. The depression's grip on us is tight. No one wants us around.
And yet there are reasons to hope.
We paint with yellow.
"Wheat Field with Reaper and Sun" by Vincent Van Gogh // my photo // "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth // “The Daffodils” or “Persephone Emerging from the Underworld” by Andrea Zanatelli // "Narcissus" by J. Foord // "Jonquil, the Light Yellow of Early Flowers, Mad Painters, and Dust Bowl–Era Pottery" by Katy Kelleher // "Still Life: Drawing Board, Pipe, Onions and Sealing-Wax" by Vincent Van Gogh // "Trunk of an Old Yew Tree" by Vincent Van Gogh // "The Siesta" by Vincent Van Gogh // thoughts on Vincent Van Gogh by @headspace-hotel // "Vase with Twelve Sunflowers" by Vincent Van Gogh // dandelion art by @mimblex // dandelion art by @ryegarden // quote by John Darnielle // dandelion art by @kingstooth // "The Garden of the Asylum" by Vincent Van Gogh // "It's This Way" by Nazim Hikmet
》𝕄𝕖𝕖𝕥 𝕄𝕖 𝕚𝕟 𝕄𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕤 #meetmeinmemes QOTD 》Can you relate to any of these? Please tell me I’m not the only one! Saw this making the rounds again (@rebeccasreads_ 👀) & felt like participating this time. Is it really May already? Does this mean I get to do a new book haul soon?? It’s almost beach read season. (Seasonal tbrs: how my brain interprets the passage of time.) xo Noelani late spring afternoon all the blossoms have fallen I read in the shade No tags, no pressure lol. Painting: Still Life Vase with Twelve Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh, c. 1888 #meetthebookstagrammer #bookstagram #newbookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookmemes #aboutme #gettoknowme #mooberryink #moodreaders #bibliophilelife #bookaddicted #bookaddiction #booknerdproblems #bookwormproblems #bookishgirl #friendsmemes #infp #introvertstruggles #introvertmemes https://www.instagram.com/p/CdEoD19PMmB/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
Still Life of Flowers, Ambrosius Bosschaert, 1614
Tulip, Judith Leyster, 1643
Flowers in a Terracotta Vase with Fruit on a Stone Balustrade, Rachel Ruysch, 1700
Light of Iris, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1924
Water Lilies, Claude Monet, 1906
Butterfly and Chinese Wisteria Flowers, Xu Xi c.970
Vase with Twelve Sunflowers, Vincent van Gogh, 1888
Lilacs in a Window, Mary Cassatt,…