When Google thought I Was Van Gogh

(Echoes of Van Gogh, Vol. 1)

I was fifteen the first time I saw a print of Café Terrace at Night.I stood in Kmart for about an hour just staring at it.

That painting hit me like a song you don’t know the words to but somehow already love. I remember later going to the Mobile Museum of Art and buying Café Terrace stationery — just to write letters to my future wife.

Years later I loaded up the whole family and drove all the way to Atlanta to see the Van Gogh exhibit at the High Museum with my nephew. I stood there grinning like a fool in front of The Bedroom, trying not to breathe too hard on the glass.

So yeah — am I a fan?What you think?

So imagine my ecstatic, overwhelming, holy-fried-chicken moment when Google Lens decided to label my painting Rue des Perdus as… Van Gogh.

I almost choked laughing.I didn’t ask for it. I don’t really see it.But I’ll take it.

And apparently, the algorithm will too — because now it’s become a thing. One week it calls me Tarkay, the next Van Gogh. I’ve decided Google has a drinking problem.

Still, there’s something oddly beautiful about being misidentified by a machine. Somewhere in that code, it caught a glimpse of the same ache that moved me when I was fifteen — the color that hums like a prayer, the night sky that won’t sit still.

I’m not trying to paint like Van Gogh. I’m just trying to paint like someone who also believes color can speak for God. Maybe that’s the real connection — not the style, but the surrender.

So here’s to Google, Tarkay, Vincent, and every fried-chicken-choking surprise along the way.Maybe the algorithm isn’t drunk after all — maybe it just sees the echo.

You don’t just see this painting — you feel it.— Esteban