MINERS and COAL MINE IN THE BORINAGE

Our patio door is open a titch to let the morning's crisp air into our living space.  It's a pleasure inhaling fresh and cool morning air.  It's as though the air hasn't yet been polluted by the human hand.   If spring arrives early, then we may as well adjust our sails and get the furniture outside.  Yesterday we chatted about planting chocolate cherry tomatoes in a planter on the deck.  We did that a couple of years ago, and all summer we picked and ate tomatoes like jelly beans.  The only place we can get started chocolate tomatoes is from an Amish nursery.  That will be a venture out on back roads, where we're known to drive and drive and drive, never knowing where we'll end up.  The boyfriend has a PhD in day-drive adventures.  Lord knows how many thousands of miles we have driven seeing the beauty of our own State.  

We're also going to buy a planter of hanging flowers for me to care for.  We usually get a variety of petunia that blossoms from spring to fall.  The entire Venny complex will turn into mini flower gardens, as all fifty units decorate their decks.  Despite our plans, I've still got my fingers crossed for a blasted blizzard that would shut everything down for a day or two.  That would call for a batch of chili and maybe some Bloody Marys.  One has to devise reasons to have a party.  Forever, I've called fun gatherings 'parties' cuz that's what they are.  Must be a party animal planted inside me somewhere, but I can have a party by myself with a bowl of popcorn.  

Miners - 1880

In 1879, Vincent moved to a coal-mining village in Belgium.  In this drawing, Vincent used black ink and pencil in such a way that it offers a picture of torment and sorrow, of a polluted countryside where the miners work.  Take note of the one figure on the left who appears to be a woman.  The rest of the figures appear to be men.  We see the start of "one different from the rest" in Vincent's early works.  

In April April of 1879, Vincent wrote to his brother:  "I went on a very interesting excursion not long ago; the fact is, I spent six hours in a mine.  In one of the oldest and most dangerous mines in the area no less.....This mine has a bad name because so many die in it, whether going down or coming up, or by suffocation or gas exploding, or because of water in the ground, or because of old passageways caving in and so on.  It's a somber place, and at first sight everything around it has something dismal and deathly about it.  The workers there are usually people, emaciated and pale owing to fever, who look exhausted and haggard, weather-beaten and prematurely old, the women generally sallow and withered.  All around the mine are poor miners' dwelling with a couple of dead trees, completely black from smoke, and thorn-hedges, dung-heaps and rubbish dumps, mountains of unusable coal." 

Coal Mine in the Borinage - 1879

(Borinage is an area in Belgium.  The name comes from the coal mines of the region, bores, meaning mine shafts.)

While living in this mining community, Vincent used most of his drawings as kindling to keep his hut warm.  When enormous explosions rocked the mines, Vincent went from hut to hut, tearing up his clothes to be used for bandages.  Sadly, Van Gogh's merciful nature wasn't realized until after his death, same as his artwork.

In this watercolor painting we see a man standing by himself.  As early as 1879, Vincent was painting profound solitude, a recurrent theme in his later works. 🖌