BEYOND VAN GOGH

Knowing that my favorite art is Impressionism, Lou bought us tickets to the Beyond Van Gogh show for my birthday back in March. The exhibit didn't arrive in Sacramento until November and today we headed out to immerse ourselves in Vincent Van Gogh paintings according to the advertising. Claude Monet is my favorite artist, but Van Gogh is a fairly close second.

The sign depicts probably his most famous painting, The Starry Night. I saw the real deal in the New York Museum of Modern Art many years ago and sat staring at it for half an hour totally mesmerized. So simple yet so moving.

The first part of the experience is to walk along reading snippets of Van Gogh's life and thoughts. He was a tormented soul as many brilliant artists seem to be and eventually took his own life. Years later after failing as an art dealer and the "ear incident" as the text described it, Van Gogh discovered that his talents lie in painting.

This is one of those tacky displays to make it look as if you are actually in the painting. Of course, we had to partake and get our photo taken. We just hung my 25 year old framed poster of The Starry Night above our fireplace in our new house.

The main room is huge. Changing paintings and patterns are projected on all four walls and several tall pillars in the center of the room. You can see by the size of the people how large it is.

I love sunflowers and have them all over my kitchen and dining room. Guess I have something in common with this famous artist.

Van Gogh loved painting portraits. He didn't have money to hire models so he decided to paint himself which explains why there are so many of his self portraits.

The projections were constantly changing and the entire cycle took about 40 minutes.

We learned that he always signed his works with just his first name "Vincent" because he believed people wouldn't know how to pronounce his last name. Doesn't seem that hard to me - oh, well.

This was the room with Van Gogh's The Starry Night surrounding us. It was pretty amazing to be immersed in various incarnations and close ups of this gorgeous creation.

Impressionism has always fascinated me how a few brush strokes can create such beautiful scenes. I've seen hundreds now and am still in awe of the talent these artists had.

Often times the projections would morph into another painting. The exhibit was billed as a Van Gogh art exhibit without the paintings.

I love flowers and still life paintings.

This one was parts of several of his flower creations.

The simplicity of still life paintings draws me in.

I'm not a huge fan of portrait paintings but Van Gogh loved his portraits. It takes a special talent to capture a person's personality on canvas.

These were two paintings as you exited the immersion room. I'm pretty sure they were copies. I've seen this one in real life before.

This is one of his more famous self-portraits. Again, the simple, colorful brush strokes that create an image amazes me. The only thing that would have made it better for me was if it was an Immersive Monet exhibit.