Last night while walking through the, de Young Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, viewing the Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay exhibit. I had the opportunity to see Van Gogh paintings again. The first Van Gogh originals I had seen in Los Angeles years ago, they had such movement, I could see them move from down a long corridor. I was drawn to them like a magnet, like I had seen them before, the energy around the strokes and color, made me feel like I was looking at one of my own original paintings. So last night was great, I viewed the whole show and at the end went back for a second look at the Van Gogh works. I was able to get closer this time because the crowd was gone, as I starred at the self portrait and watch the flow of energy around the colors, BAM! the lights went out, total darkness. I stood still looking forward into the darkness, around a minute later the emergency lights came on, no spotlights on the paintings. The color was very different and you could see the texture of the underlying strokes and canvas, the guy next to me said, “I was just thinking what it would look like without the spotlight“, I guess he found out. The energy was still there the color a lot darker than before, as I walked and looked at the, Encampment of Gypsies with Caravans, the color was amazing, the brush strokes intense, and Starry Night Over the Rhone was dark, the colors so close in value the strokes heavy, I really enjoyed having the ability to see both sides of the light. OK, time to go, the staff started moving people out of the exhibit, closed, luckily we had viewed the whole show. Outside into the storm, wind, rain and movement, from color to reality, what fun!