Vincent Van Gogh, who used brush and canvas to make the Japanese wood cut images, never understood his art.

The tragic hero of the painter and 20th-century art lover was a victim of styles, techniques and methods. Three things complicated his artistic life: his love for Japanese woodcut prints, his understanding of colours as light, and the painting as an image-making medium. These three strands continued to trouble him throughout his life and failed him at every stage of his journey.

In the beginning, as evident in his "Potato Eater" painting and earlier works, his concern seemed to be the quest for post-baroque light and visual sensibility. Perhaps, due to the romanticism of Japanese artworks existing in Europe during those days, it later evolved into an obsession with Japanese woodcut print images, which intensified the intense negotiation between painting as a medium and its technique.

His explorations, ranging from baroque highlights to illusionary pointillism, and the idea of segregated colours forming the image in the viewer's eyes as in impressionism, led to complete confusion and disillusionment. This speaks volumes about the tragic fate of this artist. His use of woollen colour balls to understand the colour palette further complicated matters, as he struggled to comprehend the conventional artistic merits demanded by his profession.

We may be able to classify his works into three stages. The first stage comprises his black and white drawings to understand highlights that define forms in conventional paintings, especially Baroque and post-baroque formalism. The second stage reflects his realization that the light in the baroque style limits colour possibilities, as argued by impressionists who rejected darkness in their work. During this period, he studied colour but could neither decide nor understand the method to achieve it in painting. In his famous painting "Garden with Courting Couples," he showcases the struggle between pointillistic and impressionistic style differences and his confusion.

Perhaps he had not been able to understand or was not convinced about the impressionist painters' argument that segregated colours have the capacity to form a seamless image in the viewer's eyes. Alternatively, he may have believed that he found his solution for this vexed question of colour separations in Japanese woodcut prints, a style he continued for the rest of his life. His first colourful self-portrait as an assertive artist speaks volumes about his newfound confidence. It seemed like he thought he had finally cracked it. Unfortunately, he could not realize the difference between colour separation in print and its perception by the viewer. The third stage encompasses the era he worked with Gauguin, where he finally attempted to separate form from techniques like modernists, only to hopelessly give it all up.

He could not understand why the art world could not accept him as an artist, and he could not realize that for conventional art markets, his works were considered only as images of woodcut prints, while the rest were seen as exploratory paintings akin to the works of art school students who tried out different techniques from Renaissance to Baroque, pointillism to Japanese woodcut images, and modernism to learn the art-making process.

Between those two paintings and over three years: in 1887, during the days he spent in Paris, hoping to understand colours and other contemporary art practices, he painted "Garden with Courting Couples: Square Saint" using pointillism and woodcut image technique in his effort to move away from his dark Baroque style of light and its highlights.

This garden, with two pathways from both ends of the painting joining into one, where couples were courting in love and trees were blooming under the pale light blue sky, marks the opening up of an artist discovering a new world of art and its possibilities. After this painting, he went on to assume that he had cracked the vexing question of the impressionist's argument of colour through the woodcut image's colour separation. His portrait series offers evidence of this confusion. Later on, he realized that the Paris modern art world had moved beyond such confusion. He continued his artistic journey with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, attempting to be a contemporary artist capturing the movements of form and colour in the human body and its performance. Once again, he found that his relationship with colour, light, and form was slipping away. He decided to move out of Paris to a more natural-rural setting to explore art and its facets as a human desire. He hoped Gauguin would help him resolve his complications. But Gauguin, with his profound understanding of form and colour, could easily identify Vincent's problem. Even as Vincent tried to imbibe Gauguin's style and treatment, he realized his incapacity to grasp Gauguin's mastery of colour and form in composition. Slowly but steadily, his world started to fall apart, and his Starry Night emerged from an asylum where the darkness of baroque, brush patches of woodcut images, and movements of modernism clashed with each other in vibrant colours and forms, representing his eternal agony.

The 1889 painting "Starry Nights," a step before his "Wheatfield with Crows," which was painted in 1890, shows that he still had some hope. Then in 1890 came the Wheatfield with Crows. After three years, he went back to his hopeful days in Paris to the same garden - "The Garden with Courting Couples: Square of Saints." But this time, it was devoid of blossoming trees of hope, courting couples of love, a peaceful and pleasant pale blue sky, and the enthusiasm to experiment with painting techniques of pointillism, and woodcut style. The Garden looked barren, with a post-harvest dried yellow wheat field. The two pathways that joined into one were no longer hopeful of finding a common path, but they were hopelessly reaching out to nowhere. A storm was building in the sky, where his woodcut-style patches were losing out to the darkness of baroque. The garden of his engagement with the art world offered nothing to him except the dark crows of doom looming large. He became hopeless, or the conventional art world was successful in convincing him that he was hopeless in the art world. Although he painted a few more paintings later, this painting became the end of his three years of evolution and the end of his life. The art world of his time considered him an image maker of an existing image-making technique: Japanese woodcut prints. 

Vincent accepted that verdict. In 1890, before his death, he wrote, "I feel – a failure – that’s it as regards me – I feel that that’s the fate I’m accepting. And which won’t change any more."

But in my 16 years of art teaching, I've never found anything as intensive and successful as the life and works of Vincent as tools to inspire students to live their dreams and imagine their art. He never realized that an artist's failures, fault lines, and vulnerabilities that define an artist's life of intense passion are the art, and it is not the popular consumption or the niche understandings of technique and treatments that the market defines as art. Both the market and Vincent failed to understand those three years' journey between 1887's "Garden with Courting Couples" to 1890's "Wheat Field with Crows" - as the metamorphosis of an artist and his art.

Forget the world, Vincent, who used brush and canvas to make the Japanese woodcut images, never understood his art. What a tragedy!

Windows

During a lecture at CEPT University, architect Prof. Vasavada shared an amusing thought about windows. He jokingly mentioned that when clients ask about windows in their homes, he would suggest placing a painting or print of windows instead of actual ones. He questioned why one would want to waste wall space when they rarely open windows due to dust or for using air conditioning. Besides, curtains often cover them, adding to the accumulation of dust. 

Although it was a joke, it reminds us of the sombre reality of windows in our urban lives. Historically, windows served as openings that brought light and fresh air into rooms, transforming dark spaces into bright ones. They hold nostalgic memories and emotional encounters. In fairy tales, windows were the means of escape for captive princesses from fortified castles, and lovers like Romeo and Juliet expressed their love through these romantic points. Their role in love stories is so significant that some beautiful Hindi film songs, such as "mere samne wali kidikki pein...," celebrate the youthful essence of windows in human life. In Arabian Nights stories, Persian windows that opened to moonlit skies, and Sufi songs praising the philosophical role of windows in expressing the reality of life and its metaphysical world, immortalized their philosophical and cultural significance.

Windows in buildings are aesthetically pleasing both from the inside and outside. They represent human needs and aspirations, balancing embellishment and functionality. Externally, they become symbols of social status in architecture, while internally they serve as escape routes from the confines of the built environment.

The famous Hawa Mahal in Jaipur tells another story of gender negotiations through windows—the unseen women hidden amidst the hustle and bustle of cities. Windows also act as secret passages for social and gender considerations, allowing the oppressed to connect with the forbidden world outside while adhering to social customs. In Kerala, a renowned traditional architectural element covers windows, enabling a view of the outside world from within while restricting the view from the inside to the outside. The partially reflective glasses that adorn our cities today have perfected this game.

 Throughout my artistic journey, I have always found these intriguing aspects of human life to be fascinating. In Paldi, Ahmedabad, there was a Gujarati bungalow near Parimal Char Rasta that caught my attention. Its transparent glass windows were always closed, yet there was a play of light behind their transparency. The idea of a fragile, transparent window providing a sense of security to the household amidst the violent world outside amused me. In my art, I have painted windows and explored their role in human life numerous times, aiming to understand the complex connection they have with our lives.

 Gradually, I realised that the role of windows is not a simple narrative between ornamental frames on the outside and functional necessity on the inside. It reveals itself as a highly complex negotiation within civilisations.

 Today, as pollution and dust continue to encroach upon our cities, windows are closing, one by one. They remain shut for weeks and months, and people in urban chaos have forgotten about them. For many city dwellers, windows have become a major problem. They stay closed, becoming a passage to nostalgia, memories, and the last connection between houses and the city—they remain shut.

 

(Photos taken during my recent trip to Ahmedabad with students.)

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