Razorcake Issue #19

embellished descriptions of theirday-to-day existence with elaborateand involved accounts of theirwork and what it meant to them.Although it is folly to imagineAnne was familiar with Vincent’s“The Bedroom,” it is not onlylikely, but highly probable themen and women of the AnneFrank House who have preservedAnne’s room knew the work well– even if they were not altogetheraware of it. It is impossible toleave the museum without feelingmanipulated. On August 4, 1944,the SD (German Security Service)arrested the eight people in hidingand took them away to the SDprisonon Euterpestraat. TheFranks were given a few minutesto grab what they could and theywould have turned the rooms overassembling those things theythought they might need in thedark days to come. It is probablybest not to dwell on this painfulmoment. Certainly, the SD wouldhave rummaged through therooms in search of clues thatwould lead them to otherAmsterdam Jews in hiding. Topresent the room as if Anne mightstep through the door after havingbrushed her teeth and kissed herparents good night is to participatein the same type of evocative fantasythat we ascribe to film, televisionand the stage. The AnneFrank house is very much a set, anorchestrated reconstructionintended to evoke a specific typeof emotion in those who set foot init. The room is not the room, wemust remember, but a terrifyinglypoignant replication.There are three versions of“The Bedroom.” When the originalwas damaged, Theo advisedVincent to make a copy beforehaving the original restored.Vincent followed his brother’sadvice and produced a second version,which is now displayed at theMusée d’Orsay in Paris (he alsocreated a third, though muchsmaller, version for his sister andmother). The copy differed inmany not-so-subtle ways from theoriginal. The lines are skewed, thewindow frames bulge as if fromsome terrible pressure, the framedcompositions on the wall hang precariously, as ifthey might pitch themselves onto the floor. Theroom itself seems tilted. There is a reason forthis. At the time when Vincent was making thecopy, he was cut off both physically and mentallyfrom the place that had once been a symbol ofrest and refuge. It was now a place that existedonly on his troubled canvas, in his restless imagination.If indeed it was rest Vincent was seeking, hedid not find it in Arles. His declining health, themany charms of the night cafés, the strain of thestrong southern sun were too much for him. Hisrelationships, namely with Gauguin, who wasstaying with him at the Yellow House, suffered.THERE IS SOMETHING UNCANNY ABOUTTHE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THESE TWOROOMS. I WAS STRUCK BY THEARRANGEMENT OF THE FURNITURE,THE IDENTICAL PERSPECTIVE,THE STRANGE YELLOW LIGHT BEHINDTHE GREEN WINDOWS - EVEN THE LINESIN THE FLOORBOARDSRUN A PARALLEL TRACK.Gauguin’s portrait of Vincent at work behind hiseasel reveals a man on the brink of collapse.After a quarrel with his friend on December 23,1888, Vincent had his much-romanticizedmishap with the shaving razor. He went to abrothel and presented a piece of his ear to a prostitutewith the following instructions: “Guardthis object carefully.” Vincent had just receivedword that his brother had gotten engaged, and hefeared his additional financial responsibilitieswould prohibit Theo from supporting him. Itwas, he surmised correctly, the beginning of theend.Upon Vincent’s return from the hospital hewrote the following to his brother: “When I sawmy canvases again after my illnessthe one that seemed best tome was the ‘Bedroom.’” It isinteresting that a scene Vincenthad painted to lighten his moodbrought him the greatest satisfaction,even though the painting wasdeeply flawed from a technicalpoint of view.After a series of late-nightexcesses, Vincent had a secondattack and he was taken to the hospitalconvinced that someone wastrying to poison him. The peopleof Arles petitioned for him to beconfined. He was removed to ahospital at Saint-Remy where hetried to kill himself by eatingpaint. July 27, 1890, he shot himselfin the chest and died two dayslater. In the last line of his last letterto Theo, found with his body ina wheat field, he asks: “What’s theuse?”Vincent’s madness was personaland private. Although thebetrayal of the Frank family by anunknown agent must have feltpersonal, Anne was destroyed by aparticularly virulent public madness.In September of 1944, Annewas deported to Auschwitz andsent to Bergen-Belsen. Cut offfrom anyone she’d ever known,she believed she alone had survived.Under the impression thather entire family had died in thecamps, Anne lost hope and died oftyphus in March of 1945, a fewshort weeks before Bergen-Belsenwas liberated. She was a prisonerto the very end.Both rooms are presented tothe viewer from the same perspective.Each has a pair of doors positionedin opposite corners, suggestingthe rooms were intendedto be passed through, not occupiedfor long periods of time. Whateverrefuge the occupants of theserooms may have found, it wasbound to be temporary and fleeting,a brief respite from the madnessswirling all about them. Bothrooms are empty, sanctuaries nomore.Though both Vincent andAnne viewed their sanctuaries asprisons, it is in these rooms theycreated the masterpieces thatforged their legacies. Here Annecomposed her famous diary, which her fatheredited and published posthumously. Vincent’swork at the Yellow House, with its bold use ofcolor, forever changed the painter’s palette andthe public’s taste. At the intersection of art andhistory, their sanctuaries are preserved not sotheir art may endure – both Vincent and Anneare strangely ubiquitous – but to remind us ofthe tenacity of the human spirit in the face ofinexorable grief, sadness, and evil. These roomstell us that sometimes the only thing that makeslife bearable is a picture of a friend, a postcardfrom a place we’d like visit some dayin the not-to-distant future.–Jim Ruland 21JIM RULAND