Vincent and the High Yellow Note

Those who know me well know my passion for art. You probably also know my passion for Vincent Van Gogh. To me, Vincent was the ultimate artist. In VL, I made a REP to recreate his life and exhibit his works - a kind of living museum. Yes, I remember well the opening night. I had created an alternate avatar - Vincent himself! - and, well studied, I was ready to play the part. Crystal and Kiz were at my side. But all did not go as I had hoped, and that night the three of us learned a painful lesson about how art itself is valued in our culture. The following is an excerpt from DR's novel. I hope you 'enjoy' it.

Love,
Fizzy


FROM THE NOVEL...
Crystal Marbella is at my side as I sign the papers to purchase my very own REP with the greenshoots that Kiz won in VL Las Vegas and so generously handed over to us; and while we both know that the creation of a new REP will require vast amounts of my effort and my attention, and as a result I will be spending much less time assisting Crystal with the Open Books Project, she is nevertheless happy for me because she knows that it has been my longtime dream to recreate the life and times of the artist Vincent Van Gogh in Virtual Life.

“Building an entire REP from bare ground up is a huge undertaking, Fizzy? Do you think you’re up to it?” Crystal asks.

“Sly Sideways has agreed to help. At least until I master the basics in scripting. If I need more help, there’s always VL University. I can learn what I need to know there, bit by bit.”

“I admire your initiative, Fizzy.”

“Thanks, Crystal. I will build it because it must be built. I will build it for Vincent. Because he gave everything he had, including his life, trying to find the high yellow note.”

“I’m going to miss you at Open Books,” says Crystal with a bit of sadness in her voice.

“Don’t worry, I’ll still come around,” I assure her.

:) Crystal types.

So, how does one go about recreating a person’s life in dot matrix? Especially one as emotionally deep as Vincent Van Gogh. Like any competent biographer, I can accurately document the progression of the events of his life. I can portray his family and his friends; the historical record is at my disposal. I can detail his trials and tribulations: poverty, illness, loneliness and confusion. I can script digital representations of the paintings, and the places he lived and worked, and of his physical features. But how can I possibly portray the spirit that once bestowed such a unique vision and representation of the world in which he lived? Yes, that is the challenge I face. Yet, I know I must try, because not only Vincent, but all artists who strive to represent the human condition—in all its varying hues and textures—deserve such a legacy. I know that if I am successful—even to a degree—then I, too, will become a viable artist. If I fail, then at least I have touched my own brush to the canvas in a genuine and noble attempt to reunite with the spirit of creation itself. And that, my fellow seedlings, is the true purpose of our existence!


In order to make a final survey of the terrain, I activate Vincent’s emulation for the first time. My creation is impeccable, I believe, but have I gathered the courage to finally walk in his shoes? My first steps in this strange body are not unlike those of any other emulation, yet I feel the artist’s peculiar presence bearing down on me. From his parents’ middle class home in Amsterdam I move to the Borinage in Belgium, then to the parsonage in Etten, England. I visit the Goupil et Cie Gallery in Paris where he worked for a short time as an art dealer with his brother Theo, then the hovel of a home he kept in the Hague with Sein the prostitute and her infant son. Finally, I move on to Arles, France, where Vincent lived for a short time with the artist Paul Gaugin, and where he cut off his ear in a castigatory rage. I also pay a visit to the asylum at St. Remy. In his room I spend a reflective moment peering out his window at the garden where he painted irises and sunflowers. Back in the village of Arles, I set out in my ragged clothes for a day of painting in the countryside, my brushes and pigments stored in a homemade satchel strapped to my back. Under my arm I carry my easel. In my free hand I carry my lunch—a crust of bread, a bottle of milk, nothing more. The children in the streets wait in hiding for me to pass so they can hurl stones at me, knocking my straw farmer’s hat off my head. In a wheat field, just beyond the city’s border, I paint furiously as a Murder of Crows circles overhead. They call out to me in a language I suddenly understand. Sheathes of wheat dance to the music of the breeze. In my waistband I carry a loaded .22 caliber pistol—a rusting relic of a firearm, really—for a purpose not yet determined.

Once more as the emulation of Fizzy Oceans, I greet Crystal and Kizmet, my two best VL friends, as they transfer into the REP near the museum.

“Oh, Fizzy!” Kiz exclaims. “What a world!”

Crystal, the European, is more demure.

“Let me show you the collection,” I offer. Walking through a corner of my virtual Amsterdam to reach the museum housing the collection of Van Gogh masterpieces, my friends are wide-eyed and full of compliments.

Once inside, we begin to view the drawings and paintings. Silence marks our collective reverence, and I notice a tear welling in Crystal’s eye as she stands before Vincent’s portrait of Père Tanguy. I fully understand this wash of sentiment, because I have felt it many times myself. In fact, while I was creating the replicas in the ‘garden’ I often found myself crying for no apparent reason, and I now understand that such emotion is not abnormal but natural when faced with such unequivocal beauty. It’s like staring straight into the face of God. Or suddenly understanding the nature of a universe. Real beauty causes us to release all the false pride and pseudo sophistication we work so hard to maintain in our daily lives. By the time we reach the last painting in the collection, Kiz appears a bit uneasy. She turns to me and asks, “Fizzy, how many invitations did you send out?”

“Uh…” It suddenly occurs to me that we three are alone in the REP. “More than nine thousand, I think,” I answer.

“Nine thousand?” she says, incredulous.

“More or less,” I confirm.

The number obviously represents a non sequitur in her mind. “Where is everybody?” she says. Her question is not necessarily directed at me but at some nebulous entity.

Crystal looks at me sympathetically but perceptively. Kiz, still the neophyte, is stunned, dumbfounded. I can feel her mind stretching to understand the absence of visitors. Suddenly realizing that I have been ignored, spurned, and summarily dismissed, and that all my sincere and dedicated work may just have been in vain, I am impressed—no, overcome—by a reality even greater than my personal failure, which is the death of beauty itself!

Can such a thing possibly be true? Can a concept or emotion so innate, and so vital to our humanity, actually die? Perhaps the answer to such a question lies in the silence around us as we view these passionate paintings by a master forever in search of recognition, forever in pursuit of expression beyond everyday lexis. The language of the soul, if I am permitted such a cliché. Of course the vocabulary of silence has a meaning too, one that is enveloping and undeniable. And perhaps final.

Sitting together at The Café Terrace at the Place du Forum—Sly’s 3D re-creation of one of Vincent’s most famous paintings—three faithful friends sit together underneath the stars in Arles, France, within the unlikely environment of a masterpiece on canvas, drinking absinthe and waiting for the Renaissance. We think we may be waiting a very long time.