WEAVERS

Hiding behind these majestic night clouds is the smallest full moon of 2024, the Snow Moon. 

  "Love as the Moon loves. 

 It does not steal the night,

 it only unveils the beauty of the dark."

  ~Isra Al-Thibeh.

    

 

Weaver Facing Left with Spinning Wheel - 1884

In 1884, when Vincent was 31, he studied the everyday lives of the craftsmen and artisans who lived in his home town of Neumen in the Netherlands.  He was particularly interested in the weavers.  In a letter to brother Theo, Van Gogh wrote, "The life of weavers is tough.  After putting hours of hard work every day a 60 yard piece of cloth is what a weaver ends up making at the end of a week.  While the weaver works on loom, his wife winds up the spools of yarn.  So, essentially, it is a job of two, for whom this is the only way to make a living."

In 1883-84, he painted 28 paintings of weavers.  We'll look at three of them.  The first is identified as the 'Weaver Facing Left with Spinning Wheel.'  The colors are somber, except for the red cloth on the loom.  Single brush strokes of varying shades of brown create the wooden plank floor.    

Why did he paint 28 pictures of weavers?  Did he use a weaver's disciplined approach to weaving as a visual metaphor for his own disciplined approach to painting?  

In a letter to his brother, Vincent wrote, "I for my part often prefer to be with people who do not even know the world, for instance the peasants, the weavers, etc., rather than being with those of the more civilized world.  It's lucky for me.  So since I have been here, for instance, I have been absorbed in the weavers." 

 

A Weaver's Cottage - 1884

Notice the windmill outside the window and the lamp to the weaver's right.

~Note the intricacies of the loom and its frame~

The more I learn about this man, the more I cannot fathom the amount of art work he produced in ten years.   It is a bleeding wound of humanity that he was made to think himself a failure, that he didn't fit in, that he wasn't good enough.  Is today's society screaming with that same pain and misunderstanding? 🖌

Today we say good-bye to our little house guest.  She's proof positive that tiny souls can leave heavy paw prints on our hearts.  I'll miss her snuggles, the kind where she wiggles as close as she can to me.  But, it's time for her to rejoin her momma and daddy and be back in her home.  She brought us joy, and we, in turn, kept her safe and loved.  

Ta-ta till the morrow.