A Piano Lesson with Van Gogh

Written by Nancy Jorgensen

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Me: I want to play Prussian blue notes. Chartreuse scales. Ochre arpeggios. Cadmium chords. Can you teach me? Even though I’m old?

VVG: There is no such thing as an old woman! This isn’t to say that there are no old women, but that a woman doesn’t grow old as long as she loves and is loved.

Me: There are those who should love me but don’t. Should I try to understand? Forgive? Or focus on one man for forty-five years, a daughter, another daughter, and friends who play their trumpets, flutes, cornamuses, violins, clarinets, and psalterys in my home?

VVG: There’s a lot more to love than people usually think. Find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful.

Me: Yes, love is beautiful. But is art always pretty? Is music always lovely? Or are dissonances—those quarreling notes that grate against each other—beautiful too? I don’t understand art at all.

VVG: Always continue walking a lot and loving nature, for that’s the real way to learn to understand art better and better.

Me: I walk in spring, when the trilliums bloom, and in those months, my piano streams a symphony of sounds. But, in winter, when I avoid the snow, a gauze drape muffles the tones, and my songs are muted.

VVG: Success is sometimes the outcome of a whole string of failures.

Me: Are skipped practices a failure? Is the inability to memorize a failure? Is a bad performance a failure? My string of failures is now a ball of yarn, wound tight and humongous. I practice until the notes are precise, rhythms align, phrases rise, and each one is pianissimo, forte or fortissimo. But where do I find the emotions?

VVG: Ah, well, if we made the colour very correct or the drawing very correct, we wouldn’t create those emotions.

Me: At the best concerts, I float above the red cushioned theater. I see old loves. I relive my father’s death. Is it an hour? Or a minute? I have no idea. Did the performers miss a note? Forget a word? It doesn’t matter. Will I ever create that experience?

VVG: Be in no doubt, though—the way to succeed is—to keep courage and patience, and to carry on working hard.

Me: I have been playing for decades—since the year I learned to read. My fingers refuse to stretch. My eyes take time to focus. My memory is slow.

VVG: A victory achieved after lifelong work and effort is better than one achieved more quickly.

Me: What if there is no victory?

VVG: Enjoy yourself too much rather than too little, and don’t take art or love too seriously either—one can do little about it oneself, it’s mostly a matter of temperament.

Me: When your own family is ill, you have no money, your friends have left, and your paintings won’t sell, what brings you back to your art?

VVG: Then I make a point of telling myself, yes I am something, I can do something.

Me: Is this an approach I can learn?

VVG: Keep thinking about it, and let me think about it again too.

Author’s Note: All Van Gogh quotes are transcripted from his letters: Letter 27, 1874; Letter 77, 1874; Letter 270, 1882; Letter 676, 1888; Letter 557, 1886; Letter 143, 1878; Letter 574, 1887; Letter 801, 1889.

About the Author:

Nancy Jorgensen is a Wisconsin writer, teacher, and musician.

Her most recent book, a middle-grade/young adult sports biography, was released in October 2022, "Gwen Jorgensen: USA’s First Olympic Gold Medal Triathlete" (Meyer & Meyer).

Her essays on music, equality, family, aging, and education appear in Ms. Magazine, Ruminate, River Teeth, Wisconsin Public Radio, CHEAP POP, and elsewhere.