Last summer I painted only the entrance of the local congregational church in Forest Hills Gardens because of the thick foliage of street trees. I have long been wanting to paint the church, but the only angle to paint the church in summer was from its back side. I didn't want to do that. For one thing, its back side wasn't that great. More importantly, the perspective reminded me of Vincent van Gogh who painted the back side of the Catholic church in Aur ser ior to express his grievances about not being accepted for the fact he was a Protestant. When I was in France, I purposely went to view the backside of the church in the city where he spent the last two months of his life and eventually died there. Recently research concludes that he didn't commit suicide. His death was in fact due to the foul play of some local hooligans. I am not sure whether it was true. Anyway, his family had a genetic history of mental problems including his brother Theo was was buried by his side in the city.
It was below freezing point in temperature today but didn't feel so bad. The ground was covered with fallen leaves and they still kept falling. The affluent residential area has hired people to clean the streets for more than a week. When I was painting, I could see workers were busy blowing, raking, and sucking leaves into the trucks. Their work was not expected to complete very soon.
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