Looking at Van Gogh

My father , born in 1913, was a clever man, a scientist, by turns over-excitable and depressed. Nowadays he would be called bi-polar. He could, and did, talk at great length and with great animation about famous scientists, living and dead, or about artists, particularly Van Gogh, whose paintings he had seen in the 1940's. My father was born into poverty in Yorkshire, long before the advent of the Welfare State, and against the odds he won a scholarship to Oxford University. His family survived the Great Depression, but only just- his own father managed to hang onto his job, but was in constant fear of losing it. In short, my father knew better than most how precarious life can be at the margins of society. He was obsessed by the idea that Vincent's painting life was only made possible because it was paid for by his brother Theo.

One day , when I was about ten years old, he bought a reproduction of Van Gogh's Arles Cornfield painting (above) , framed it, and hung it over the fireplace at home. He then ordered us all into the room, my mother and twin sister and me, and insisted that we contemplate this picture for what at the time seemed like an age, but was probably only a minute or two. Of course, what my father was in love with was the notion of genius, recognised or not. He was also fascinated by art because it was one of the few things he couldn't do.