![]() ![]() ![]() “Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.” Vincent van gogh And the greatest motivator of courageous acts is love. For the Dutch people as well as for my characters, responding to Nazi darkness and oppression required great courage. It’s a testimony to van Gogh’s courage to see God’s love and beauty in spite of his own darkness. The starry heavens take up most of the painting, radiating light into the dark night as if to portray God reaching down into a darkened world. His great masterpiece Starry Night depicts the view from the window of his asylum. Sadly, van Gogh struggled with mental illness (as does one of my characters in Chasing Shadows), yet it didn’t stop him from creating works of passionate beauty. His missionary board fired him for becoming too involved! He then turned to art as his way to serve God, painting ordinary laborers in ways that showed them as bearers of God’s image, no matter how poor. RELATED: No Journey Too Far By Carrie Turansky – Here Is The Wonderful PrologueĬompassion and God’s unconditional love drove him to become so involved in the people’s lives that he lived in poverty himself to help meet their needs. But after failing the seminary entrance exam, he became a missionary to impoverished coal miners in Belgium instead. His father and grandfather were ministers, and Vincent wanted to follow their footsteps. What isn’t well-known about Vincent van Gogh’s background is his fervent Christian faith. Each of my characters’ response to the Nazi persecution of Jews depends on a variety of complex factors. He inspires me to dig deeply into the backgrounds of my characters and the motivations behind their behaviors. Van Gogh is mostly known for his struggle with mental illness, which caused him to cut off his ear, but there is so much more to his story. I could spend all day in the Van Gogh Museum viewing his works, which pulse with vibrant color and emotion. My favorite Dutch artist is Vincent van Gogh, whose Sunflowers and Starry Night are easily recognizable. I search especially for a few vivid details that will bring the story to life-such as an eyewitness’s account of her emotions as she watched Nazi paratroopers spilling from airplanes in the dark of night. ![]() Naturally, a novel about WWII requires a lot of research, which I then distill into a story. Rembrandt’s work The Night Watch, which I saw in the Rijksmuseum, features enough fascinating characters to people an entire novel! For inspiration, I like to keep photographs on my desk of what I imagine my characters to look like, so I require a lot of diverse faces of various ages. I especially love the father’s expression in his painting Return of the Prodigal Son. Unlike other portrait artists of his day who minimized their subjects’ flaws, Rembrandt painted his characters as if peering into their souls, showing deep emotion in their facial expressions and eyes. ![]() One of my favorite artists, Rembrandt, did especially well with emotion in his paintings. In creating my characters, I tried to burrow deep inside their hearts, capturing their grief and fear as they faced the Nazis so my readers could experience it, too. The Dutch declared neutrality when the war broke out, but the Nazis staged a surprise invasion and quickly overran the tiny country, turning the lives of my main characters-Lena, Miriam, and Ans-upside down. These great masters have been especially helpful in inspiring my newest novel, Chasing Shadows, which takes place in the Netherlands during World War II. There’s such beauty in the serene Dutch landscapes and so much depth in the portraits. I could spend hours there, and I’m always filled to the brim with creative inspiration afterwards. On my many trips to the Netherlands for book tours, my Dutch publisher has treated me to visits to their outstanding art museums, such as the Mauritshuis in The Hague and the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. When it comes to artists, I’ve found the Dutch masters particularly inspirational. “‘Van Gogh engages you’ Sunflowers in front of Van Gogh Museum Museumplein Amsterdam Zuid” by *_* is licensed under CC BY 2.0 ![]()
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