Post-Van Gogh Retrospective:
Post-Van Gogh Series

Dr. T.F. Chen

Van Gogh - Pope
Acrylic on canvas
48" x 36"
1990

Chen takes his time machine in the other direction, back in time to bring in Diego Velasquez (1599-16060), Spain's greatest painter of all time.

Although appointed as painter to the court, Velasquer was allowed to make voyages to Italy.  On the second of them he painted Pope Innocent X, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, in sumptuous red harmonies.

In voyaging from Warhol to Velasquer, Chen has gone from Pop art to Pope art.

Chen's icon-switchery deposes the Pope from his religious throne and crowns the secular Van Gogh in his stead.  A few years ago Morris L. West wrote The Shoes of The Fisherman, a novel about a modern day Cardinal who began giving away the wealth of the Vatican when he was elevated to the Papacy.  Chen is playing a slightly different game.  His Pope holds a check which says, "Pay to the order of Vincent Van Gogh, One Billion and Six (hundred thousand dollars)."  The check is drawn on the Bank of the Whole World and the account is held by the whole world company."

Chen means to laud Van Gogh and his contribution to art but an irony surfaces.  If the best Van Gogh paintings in the world's museums were put on the auction market, $1.6 billion would not be enough to buy them.