Vincent painted views overand over again of the asylum gardenbeyond his window frame, so in love with autumn’s colours,unable to refrain, admitting to his brother Theoit would be the same every day, until autumn came tumblingfrom the trees. He would never grow weary of garden,sky and leaves. Kim M. Russell, 1st October 2025 I have […]
Tag: Vincent van Gogh
Take Three Words
Drizzly It’s one of those days when the distinctscent of petrichor permeates the day; it sneaks through open windows and leavesan invisible trail like snot on a child’s sleeve, or the track of a single plump raindropas it trickles down the window pane. Wipes As a child, I loved to watch the window cleanerwhen he […]
View from the Ochre Room
In his studio in the asylum at Saint Remy,the artist sets up his easel, takes a sheetof paper the size of a street poster (maybeit was once a poster), and attaches it,smooths it flat, arranges chalks, oils,watercolours and brushes.He chooses carefully, black chalkto sketch the window, a little off-centre.Light passes through the glass of jars,bottles […]
Still Life with a Plate of Onions
His hog hair brush elicited ochre orbs;their pale sprouts, long grown through,contrast with green pot of camphor oiland candlestick’s cobalt blue. Were onions the only vegetablethe ailing artist could affordonce he had paid for rough wine,pipe tobacco and humble board? Or was he keen to improve his healthafter battling with hallucinationsand mutilating an ear? Throughoutthe […]
Dreamless
It’s a dream that never comes to me: there is no blossoming chestnut tree, no garden of rioting summer blooms, not even a house with empty rooms. My childhood garden has no calm, no mother to rock me in her arms. Because it was so long ago, I search for it with heart of woe. […]
Season of Choice
‘No blue without yellow and without orange, and if you do blue, then do yellow and orange as well, surely’ – Vincent van Gogh Spring is always fresh and new with gentleness of pastel hues so delicate, tender, newly born on a gentle, breezy, sunny morn. But autumn still retains the blue of summer skies, […]
To-Do List Before Painting Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear
Explore the brushstrokes on the print pinned to the wall.Paint it into the background of the latest self portrait.Don’t forget the most important thing of all – locate the pawnbroker’s ticket for your thick winter coat.Ask Theo for money for brushes and tubes of paint:Prussian blue, emerald, chrome yellow and vermillion.Gather kindling and logs – […]
Willow Wraith
Lithe limbs still clad with curly leavesand protective ivy shield her naked bark.There is no morning mist to clothe nor breezeto make her dance. Just green breath of trees,the scent of chlorophyll to transport herto the beginning, when spirits did not needto hide inanimate in plants, rocks, ice and water.Invisible to all except husband, son […]
Wheatfield with Crows
His paint oozed solitude and sadness. The turbulent brush almost fell from his hands. He knew it so well, this field of rude life and death, its diverging blood-rusted paths leading to the same horizon. The violent polarity of yellow field of wheat daubed in rows and blue sky smudged with clouds erupts with black […]
Broken Compass
Vincent van Gogh once wrote: ‘The conscience is a man’s compass’, but humankind’s compass broke and we have lost our way. We are drowning the planet in a mass of plastic, choking the rainforests with palm oil, sitting by and watching as the polar icecaps melt into the background of inane selfies posted on social […]
writing in north norfolk 