Thursday, March 30, 2017

Happy 164th to Vincent van Gogh

On its website, the Van Gogh Museum describes Vincent's 'Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette' from 1886 as 'a juvenile joke.' Maybe it's because I was a juvenile 19-year-old visiting Amsterdam when I was first exposed to (and surprised by) the original painting by an artist I knew for sunflowers, starry nights, and self portraits, but it's always been one of my favorites ever since. Revisiting it today on the virtual walls of the internet after many years, it struck me that it could be yet another in Van Gogh's long series of self portraits.

Happy Birthday. Smoke 'em if you've got 'em.
Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette (1886)
in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

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