Art of the Odessa Files

03/01/2025

04/11/2024

Painting offers a plethora of benefits, no matter what medium you choose—acrylic, watercolor, oil, or another.

Here are some of the key benefits:

Mental Health
- Stress Relief
Painting can be a therapeutic activity that helps reduce stress and anxiety.
- Mindfulness
Engaging in painting encourages mindfulness, helping you stay in the moment and find a sense of calm.

Cognitive Benefits
- Problem-Solving Skills
Painting involves a lot of decision-making, like choosing colors and techniques, which enhances cognitive abilities.
- Creativity
It stimulates the imagination and allows you to express yourself creatively.

Emotional Benefits
- Self-Expression
Painting provides a medium to express emotions that might be difficult to put into words.
- Achievement
Completing a painting can bring a sense of accomplishment and boost self-esteem.

Physical Benefits
- Fine Motor Skills
The detailed movements required in painting improve hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.
- Concentration
Focusing on a painting project can enhance your ability to concentrate.

Social Benefits
- Community
Participating in painting classes or groups can help build social connections and foster a sense of community.
- Collaboration
Collaborative projects can enhance teamwork skills.

Painting is not just about creating art; it's a holistic activity that nurtures the mind, body, and soul. Ready to pick up a brush and get started?



Acrylic painting by ofile

06/06/2024

30/05/2024

Creative Outlets: Engaging in creative activities such as painting, writing, or playing a musical instrument can be therapeutic. Expressing yourself creatively helps alleviate stress and provides an emotional outlet.

Whether the output is on a Van Gogh level or not, the point is to have any outlet and a good one at that.

Would you like to explore your creativity with painting? Let us know by commenting below.

06/11/2023

A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently a man of one thing. It is not enough to say that he is earnest, hearty, uncompromising, thorough-going, whole-hearted, fervent in spirit. He sees one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed-up in one thing — and that one thing is to please God Whether he lives — or whether he dies; whether he has health — or whether he has sickness; whether he is rich — or whether he is poor; whether he pleases man — or whether he gives offence; whether he is thought wise — or whether he is thought foolish; whether he gets blame — or whether he gets praise; whether he gets honor, or whether he gets shame — for all this the zealous man cares nothing at all. He burns for one thing — and that one thing is to please God, and to advance God's glory. If he is consumed in the very burning — he is content.

He feels that, like a lamp, he is made to burn, and if consumed in burning — he has but done the work for which God appointed him. Such a one will always find a sphere for his zeal. If he cannot preach, and work, and give money — he will cry, and sigh, and pray. Yes, if he is only a pauper, on a perpetual bed of sickness — he will make the wheels of sin around him drive heavily, by continually interceding against it.

If he cannot fight in the valley with Joshua — then he will do the prayer-work of Moses, Aaron, and Hur, on the hill. (Exod. 17:9-13.) If he is cut off from working himself — he will give the money Lord no rest until help is raised up from another quarter, and the work is done. This is what I mean when I speak of "zeal" in religion.

-J.C. Ryle

06/10/2023

02/09/2023

"Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity's Gate)" (Saint-Rémy, early May 1890) [F702]

"Van Gogh does paint suffering. An intense sympathy for people's suffering, that's what's totally modern about him. He made people feel for one's fellow humans and understand their suffering.
But he does more than that: he TRANSCENDS the SUFFERING.

By painting suffering in such a way, you don't experience it as suffering any more. It doesn't make you suffer any more, because you know it's an inevitability, and the insight gives peace.That revelation is what I think is greatest about Van Gogh." ― Helene Kröller-Müller (Dutch, 1869-1939), one of the first European women to put together a major art collection and credited as being one of the first collectors to recognise the genius of Vincent van Gogh. She donated her entire collection to the Dutch people, along with her and her husband, Anton Müller's, large forested country estate. Today it is the Kröller-Müller Museum, in Otterlo, the Netherlands

Van Gogh's work is 'the reflection of a heroic life that had passed through suffering to arrive at a deeper spirituality.' ― H.P. Bremmen, Dutch painter, art critic, art teacher, collector and art dealer (1871–1956)

This painting made in Saint-Rémy was completed in early May 1890 at a time when Vincent van Gogh was convalescing from a severe relapse in his health. It is based on an early lithograph (The Hague. November 1882 [F1662]; see the lithograph http://bit.ly/2oAbuLT ).

In November 1882 Vincent wrote to Theo,
"... I was trying to say this in this print — but I can’t say it as beautifully, as strikingly as reality, of which this is only a dim reflection seen in a dark mirror - that it seems to me that one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the existence of ‘something on high’ in which Millet believed, namely in the existence of a God and an eternity, is the unutterably moving quality that there can be in the expression of an old man like that, without his being aware of it perhaps, as he sits so quietly in the corner of his hearth. At the same time something precious, something noble...

(...) Perhaps the most wonderful passage in Uncle Tom’s cabin is the one where the poor slave, sitting by his fire for the last time and knowing that he must die, remembers the words

'Let cares like a wild deluge come,
And storms of sorrow fall,
May I but safely reach my home,
My god, my Heaven, my All'
(The song of the slave in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s cabin. published in 1852)

This is far from all theology — simply the fact that the poorest woodcutter, heath farmer or miner can have moments of emotion and mood that give him a sense of an eternal home that he is close to." - The Hague, 26/27 November 1882 http://bit.ly/2muMm7V

"Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity's Gate)" (Saint-Rémy, early May 1890) [F702]
By Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)
oil on canvas; 80 x 64 cm; 31.5 x 21.2 in.
Sitter: Adrianus Jacobus Zuyderland (1810-1897), pensioner and war veteran living at a local almshouse in The Hague.
© Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands http://bit.ly/2ohN4dv
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