Dao and the art of bicycle maintenance

Dao and the art of bicycle maintenance

It's 10:30 am. I'm sitting at a café in the center of Tilburg, a beautiful Dutch city with a giant neo-Gothic cathedral before me. Two stratospheric spires dwarf the golden statue of a saint, perched above a clock accented with the same gold. Below the clock is the date it was built, 1888. An important year in the life of Vincent van Gogh; the year he moved to Provence and finally found himself as an artist.

Two days ago I was in Arnhem, the closest AirBnB near Otterlo I could find. Just outside of Otterlo, within the confines of the picturesque Hoge Veluwe National Park, is the Kröller-Müller Museum. It was founded by Helene Kröller-Müller and her husband, a Dutch shipping and mining tycoon. Thanks to the advice of art critic Henk Bremmer, Helene bought many van Gogh's well before he was internationally recognized as an innovative genius. One collection in particular she purchased, included twelve paintings originally owned by French art critic Albert Aurier. Aurier was the first to publicly praise Vincent while Vincent was still a patient at the insane asylum in St. Remy. The article, Les Isoles: Vincent van Gogh appeared in the inaugural edition of the Mercure de France. Vincent was elated about the praise in letters to his family; though in his letter to Aurier, he deflected the praise heaped upon him, stating that many other artists, including Gauguin, surely deserved more credit.

Vincent subsequently gifted Cypresses to Aurier, in thanks for the article.

How Aurier came to own the other eleven remains a mystery. The most plausible answer is Vincent's brother, Theo gifted them to Aurier. He had asked Aurier to write a biography of Vincent's life. Unfortunately, Theo died just six months after his brother; and Aurier about a year after that. In addition to being an art critic, Aurier was a Symbolist poet. I'll discuss that in more detail later. What's important to understand is Aurier found in Vincent's letter and certain canvasses, Symbolist qualities. Aurier was the first to own Café Terrace at Night.

When Aurier's heir, who had inherited the collection needed money, he sold the collection to Helene. She would purchase several others until Theo wife, Jo, decided she had too many and would sell her no more. I believe Aurier recognized Café Terrace at Night to be a Symbolist Last Supper. I'm hoping to research his life when I arrive in Paris next week.

It had been a sixteen year pilgrimage for me to finally witness the painting. It's located at the end of a hallway, so as you enter the room, it's featured in the center; its allure unmistakable. I was there before anyone else and got to spend some serious one on one time with the canvas. My nose millimeters away, I discovered the central serving figure has a beard. This further lends to my theory Vincent intended this to be a symbolic image of Christ.

After taking in the other four rooms packed full of paintings I have only studied out of books and on line, I celebrated with a beer named in Vincent's honor.

From there, I spent the night in Arnhem at a different AirBnB, one that was less expensive and further south, along my supposed route to Eindhoven on the bike. With no bike, I took the train to Eindhoven and was able to arrange to meet Brad, who finally sold me a bike!

This is not Brad. This is Vannesch. More on that later...

Elated to finally have a bike, a very cheap, old and hammered bike, I strapped down my too heavy baggage, jumped on and headed for Nuenen. Originally, I was to travel through Nuenen on my way to Eindhoven. I sort of knew the general direction to go, got lost a couple of times, but eventually found the town from the south.

I cycled on hoping to find the Van Gogh Village. I didn't go far enough. Getting pretty tired after an hour and a half of solid cycling, it appeared there was a restaurant with a mill I thought looked familiar.

 

Sure enough, it was a mill Vincent had painted:

My picture, unfortunately is from the backside. Speaking of backsides, I climbed off my bike, saddle-sore and bow-legged and walked about the deserted beer garden. Feeling like a cowboy at an empty saloon, I peeked in the windows to try to see what was up. Sand bags. There must have been flooding because there were sand bags everywhere and people no where.

Uh-oh, have to run, more soon!

Jared