Resonance with Creation

Resonance with Creation Commentary by Wesley Vander Lugt Cite Share Show Bible Passage Vincent van Gogh painted Long Grass with Butterflies a year before he died, while a patient at Saint-Paul psychiatric hospital. This work seems to express the intense resonance he experienced with the living world, as witnessed to in many of his letters: a world created, animated, and sustained by the living God, whether the expansive heavens (Psalm 104:2–3) or the grass beneath our feet (v.14). In a much earlier letter to his brother Theo, Van Gogh wrote that ‘all nature seems to speak … I do not understand why everyone does not see and feel it; nature or God does it for everyone who has eyes and ears and a heart to understand’ (26–27 November 1882). In other words, nature is not mute; it has a voice that calls for recognition and response. Van Gogh was fascinated by individual creatures as well as their relations to each other, to humans, and to God, as described in Psalm 104:27–30. Long Grass with Butterflies expresses these resonant relationships by focusing on a small section of meadow within the hospital grounds. A path cuts across the top, giving a sense of spatial depth, but the focus is on the profusion of grass and flowers that seem to explode from the ground like miniature, smoking fireworks (‘[W]ho touches the mountains and they smoke!’; Psalm 104:32). In another letter to Theo, Van Gogh communicates respect for Japanese artists who begin by studying and painting one blade of grass; artists ‘who live in nature as if they themselves were flowers’ (24 September 1888). Creation is not always harmonious, however, and its relationship with the Creator includes moments of dissonance and death (Psalm 104:29), which Van Gogh communicated through darker colours of red ochre, grey, and black (26 November 1889). Resonant relationships between creation, humanity, and God include experiences of both delight and sorrow, both of which are palpable in Long Grass with Butterflies. References Van Gogh, Vincent. 1882. ‘Letter to Theo van Gogh, 26–27 November 1882’, #288, available at https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let288/letter.html [accessed 17 March 2025] ___. 1888. ‘Letter to Theo van Gogh, 24 September 1888’, #686, https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let686/letter.html [accessed 17 March 2025] ___. 1889. ‘Letter to Émile Bernard, 26 November, #822, https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let822/letter.html [accessed 17 March 2025]