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A Room of One’s Own

A Room of One’s Own

Recently I read about the Art Institute of Chicago’s life-size recreation of Van Gogh’s beautiful and heartbreaking painting “Room in Arles”. You can actually rent the room (located in a neighborhood just outside the museum’s campus) through AirBnB. What an interesting idea.

In high school, my senior class went on a trip to the de Young Museum in San Francisco to see a collection of Van Gogh paintings. Having grown up in a small town, this was my first experience in a big art museum filled with major works. The Van Gogh’s were breathtaking, and I was filled with the wonder of art so powerful and compelling. I was particularly struck by the “Room in Arles.” I sat in front of the painting for most of an hour, trying to imagine spending time in that colorful, yet lonely environment. It filled me with both joy and a deep sadness I didn’t quite understand at the time.

Years later while visiting my sister in Paris, I went to the Gare d’Orsay Museum to see their wonderful collection of Impressionist art. There on the wall was the “Room in Arles,” and all those emotions came flooding back from my first sighting of the work. As an adult living on my own, I felt a new connection with this expression of a humble yet very personal room. Here was Van Gogh attempting to create his own space, and this time it brought to mind Virginia Woolf’s treatise on the need to have a place to call one’s own.

In New York a few years after that, I saw the painting in a special exhibition at the Met. At this point I felt as though the piece had become a touchstone in my life—keeping tabs on me while I kept tabs on it. It was in a room with both “Sunflowers” and “Starry Night” (powerful indeed), but I kept coming back to stand squarely in front of “Room in Arles.”

The last time I saw the painting was three years ago in Chicago. I’m glad to know it’s still there, and its replica is down the street. I still have a postcard of the painting—well-worn after 30 years, but still vibrant and still evocative of the need we have to carve out something that belongs just to us. There is something comforting and moving about spaces we create for ourselves.