This painting shows a loosely painted view of the Sleeping Bear Dunes, 460 feet above sea level, looking west over Lake Michigan, with a now-famous blackbird in flight.
The blackbird motif has lived in my mind’s eye for decades—ever since I saw it painted by Georgia o’Keeffe.
Here, turned horizontally, the bird flies north, with the glow of the dunes beneath its wings.
A quote often attributed to Picasso goes: “Good artists copy; great artists steal.”
Van Gogh, after all, painted First Steps’ in oil—not as an act of imitation, but as transformation based on a pastel and charcoal drawing by Millet.
1890, Van Gogh, First Steps affer Millet, Metropolitican Museum of Art
1859–66, Millet: First Steps, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Van Gogh “considered his copies ‘translations,’ akin to a musician’s interpretation of a composer’s work.
8 Comments
The palette is stunningly beautiful. The shapes are simple yet elegant.
Thank you, Barb. I painted my favorite colors
Absolutely wonderful, I I so love this post. Oftimes I feel as though I’m in the Museum of Birgit, where not only beautiful paintings abide in quiet mediations, but beautiful and revelatory art quotes spring forth that utterly inspire.
Janny, I do miss our museum and gallery visits in NYC so much!
Fantastic!
Thank you, Matthew
This is an interesting blend of michigan water and desert energy. Both important and vast…. Thank you Birgit.
In my mind’s eye, I had merged two of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings: her Blackbird with “It was Blue and Green,” a painting of a mountain lake. I was surprised to realize at some later time that they were two separate paintings. Perhaps I associate the blackbird with water since, during the summer months, I had often hiked from Taos Ski Valley up to the alpine mountain lake, Williams Lake. Thus, my experience of New Mexico was less of the desert energy and more about water in its alpine lakes.
The palette is stunningly beautiful. The shapes are simple yet elegant.
Thank you, Barb. I painted my favorite colors
Absolutely wonderful, I I so love this post. Oftimes I feel as though I’m in the Museum of Birgit, where not only beautiful paintings abide in quiet mediations, but beautiful and revelatory art quotes spring forth that utterly inspire.
Janny, I do miss our museum and gallery visits in NYC so much!
Fantastic!
Thank you, Matthew
This is an interesting blend of michigan water and desert energy. Both important and vast…. Thank you Birgit.
In my mind’s eye, I had merged two of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings: her Blackbird with “It was Blue and Green,” a painting of a mountain lake. I was surprised to realize at some later time that they were two separate paintings. Perhaps I associate the blackbird with water since, during the summer months, I had often hiked from Taos Ski Valley up to the alpine mountain lake, Williams Lake. Thus, my experience of New Mexico was less of the desert energy and more about water in its alpine lakes.